The judgment establishes the mandatory nature of the provisions under the Commercial Courts Act, emphasizing the need for strict timelines in commercial suits to ensure expeditious disposal of disputes.

JUDGMENT :

1. These Interim Applications, taken out in a Commercial Suit by original Defendants, seek condonation of delay of 410 days in filing of written statements. Alternatively, they apply for leave to treat the affidavits in reply filed earlier by the Defendants in a notice of motion taken out in the suit (Notice of Motion No.2430 of 2018) as written statements of the Defendants.

2 The suit has been filed as a commercial IP suit for preventing acts of infringement, passing off and unfair trade practice. The Plaintiff is a registered proprietor of various trademarks having the word “METRO” as their intrinsic part (“METRO marks”). The Plaintiff inter alia seeks a perpetual injunction restraining the Defendants from using the METRO marks or marks deceptively similar to them or having the word ‘METRO’ as their part. The writ of summons was duly served on the Defendants in October 2018. The Applicant/Defendants’ case in these applications is that though their written statements were ready, the same could not be filed due to drastic and far-reaching policy changes of the Union Government which had an overarching effect on the Defendants’ business strategy and activities and since their whole legal team was pre-occupied with this development. The Defendants claim that they were, in any event, contesting the Plaintiff’s application for temporary injunction (Notice of Motion No.2430 of 2018) in terms of the perpetual injunction sought in the commercial suit interaliaby filing affidavits in reply. It is submitted that, in the premises, either this Court may take their written statements on record by condoning the delay or allow them to treat their replies to the motion as their respective written statements.

3. After the Supreme Court judgment in SCG Contracts India Pvt. Ltd. vs. K.S. Chamankar Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd. 2019 SCC OnLine SC 226, the argument that delay in filing written statement, for good reasons, can be condoned, is no more available to a defendant. The Supreme Court, in that case, construed the three crucial amendments to the Code of Civil Procedure brought in its wake by the Commercial Courts, Commercial Division and Commercial Appellate Division of High Courts Act, 2015 (“Commercial Courts Act”), namely, (i) substitution of the second proviso to sub-rule (1) of Rule 1 of Order V, (ii) addition of a new proviso in Rule 1 of Order VIII and (iii) insertion of a proviso in Rule 10 of Order VIII. The effect of these amendments, as explained by the Supreme Court, is that ordinarily a written statement is required to be filed within 30 days of service of writ of summons; a grace period of a further 90 days may, however, be allowed by the court for reasons to be recorded in writing and for costs as may be deemed fit; after expiry of this aggregate period of 120 days, the defendant forfeits his right to file a written statement; and no court can allow such written statement to be taken on record. No court, in other words, has power to extend the time for filing of a written statement beyond 120 days in all. The Supreme Court, in clearest of words, emphasized this by stating that these clear, definite and mandatory provisions cannot be circumvented by recourse to inherent powers under Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The first prayer of the Applicant/Defendants for taking their written statement on record by condoning the admitted delay of 410 days, thus, deserves to be rejected outright.

4. That brings us to the alternative prayer for allowing the Defendants to treat their replies to the interim application of the Plaintiff (Notice of Motion No.2430 of 2018) as their written statements. Mr.Dhond, learned Senior Counsel for Applicant/Defendant No.1, and Mr.Kamat, learned Counsel for Applicant/Defendant No.2, submit that their clients have extensively dealt with the Plaintiff’s case in the plaint in their replies to the notice of motion. Learned Counsel submit that after all, though matters of form (for a written st