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CASE NO.: Appeal (civil)  6070 of 2007

PETITIONER: Iqbaljit Singh

RESPONDENT: Pritam Kaur & Anr.

DATE OF JUDGMENT: 13/12/2007

BENCH: Tarun Chatterjee & Dalveer Bhandari

JUDGMENT: J U D G M E N T

(Arising out of SLP)No.19385 of 2006)

                                               O R D E R   

               Leave granted.

       This appeal by special leave is directed against the order  dated     25th of September, 2006 passed by the High Court of  Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh in C.M.No.9803 of 2006, by  which the High Court had allowed an application filed under  Section 24 of the Code of Civil Procedure seeking transfer of  Civil Suit No.498 of 2004 (titled as Pritam Kaur vs. Iqbaljit Singh  & Anr.) pending in the Court of Additional Civil Judge, (Senior  Division), Faridabad, Haryana to the Civil Court at Chandigarh  or Panchkula. Feeling aggrieved by the aforesaid order of the  High Court, the present special leave petition has been filed in  respect of which leave has already been granted.         Having heard the learned counsel for the parties and after  going through the application under Section 24 of the Code of  Civil Procedure and the objections filed therein and other  materials on record, we are of the view that, in the facts and  circumstances of the case, the reasons offered for transfer at  the instance of the respondent could not be taken as a good  ground for transferring the suit from Faridabad to Chandigarh.  The suit, being No. 9803 of 2006, has been filed by Smt. Pritam  Kaur, the respondent herein, before the Additional Court of the  Civil Judge, (Senior Division) at Faridabad, Haryana in the year  2004. In the application for transfer, the ground for transferring  the suit was that the respondent, being an old lady, was not in a  position to pursue the case at Faridabad and, therefore, the suit  be disposed of by the court at Chandigarh and not by the Court  at Faridabad. It is true that the plaintiff-respondent is a resident  of Chandigarh and aged about 75 years, even then, we are of  the view that no ground has been made out for transfer of the  suit from Faridabad to Chandigarh. It is not in dispute that the  plaintiff-respondent herself had instituted the suit for declaration  and injunction in the Faridabad Court and prosecuted the same  for almost two years and only after the expiry of two years, the  application was filed seeking transfer. In our view, the order of  transfer passed by the High Court in the exercise of its power  under Section 24 of the Code of Civil Procedure cannot be  sustained. It was the plaintiff-respondent, as noted herein  above, who had filed the suit at Faridabad having jurisdiction to  try the same and who had prosecuted the suit for about two  years and then asked for transfer. Only because of the old age  of the respondent, the suit could not have been transferred to

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Chandigarh.       Accordingly, we set aside the impugned order and direct  the trial court at Faridabad to decide the suit, positively within  four months, without granting any unnecessary adjournment to  either of the parties. Parties are directed to co-operate and we  fix 7th of January, 2008 for appearance of the parties before the  trial court at Faridabad either in person or through their counsel.  It will be open to the parties to mention before us for further  direction, if the suit is not disposed of within the time specified  herein above.       Accordingly, the impugned order is set aside and the  appeal is allowed to the extent indicated above. There will be  no order as to costs.