A lay client should not be made to suffer for laches, inaction and/or negligence on the part of their respective Advocates.

( 1 ) THE suit, as per cause title, was appearing in the list of this Court under the heading of "for HEARING" quite sometime.

( 2 ) THE suit was dismissed for default on 26th February, 1999 when neither of the parties appeared before this Court even in the third call.

( 3 ) AT the time of rising of the Court at 4-15 p. m. of the day, in an unusual time, learned Advocate for the plaintiff mentioned the matter to recall the order of dismissal of the suit only taking the name and absence of the appearing of a senior counsel of this Court since it was not the proper time for mentioning nor Court should run its administration only on the name and absence of the Senior Counsel, the Court was pleased to direct to mention on the following day as and when Court takes mentioning of the matters.

( 4 ) ON the following day, learned Advocate again mentioned taking the name of self-same Senior Counsel and his absence and prayed for recalling of the order as if the name of the Counsel will serve the purpose of recalling whenthe Court refused the same on the ground that Court should not proceed on the basis of the stand or face value of any Senior Counsel of the bar but on the basis of the face value of the case with a direction to take out a formal application for the purpose of consideration in accordance with law.

( 5 ) SUBSEQUENTLY the petitioner took out an application which according to them is an application under Order 9, Rule 4 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Order 9, Rule 4 of the Code of Civil Procedure prescribes as follows :"where a suit is dismissed under Rule 2 or Rule 3, the plaintiff may (subject to the law of limitation) bring a fresh suit; or he may apply for an order to set aside the dismissal aside, and if he satisfies the Court that there was sufficient cause for (such failure as is referred to in Rule 2) or for his non-appearance, as the case may be, the Court shall make an order setting aside the dismissal and shall appoint a day for proceeding with the suit. "

( 6 ) AS and when the application was called on the Court sought for explanation as to the "sufficient cause" for recalling and setting aside the order of dismissal of the suit.

( 7 ) AT the threshold learned Advocate appearing in support of the petitioner contended that their case is squarely hit by the principles laid down by a case reported in AIR 1981 SC 1400 (Rafiq v. Munshilal) and wanted to cite the decision as if principle of such case is an absolute proposition of law irrespective of the factual position.

( 8 ) TO understand the situation, I want to explain that the principle laid down therein is that a lay client should not be made to suffer for laches, inaction and/or negligence on the part of their respective Advocates.

( 9 ) I refused to accept such submission of the petitioner since the ratio of the AIR 1981 SC 1400 cannot be regarded as a good law now in view of the later decision of the Supreme Court reported in (1993) 2 SCC 185 : (1993 AIR SCW 1178) (Salil Dutta v. T. M. and M. C. Pvt. Ltd.) by which Supreme Court distinguished the feature of absolute proposition of the earlier decision i. e. AIR 1981 SC 1400. Learned Advocate was not aware of the later decision and accordingly, this Court was pleased to adjourn the matter for giving scope to the learned Advocate to address this Court on that score.

( 10 ) ON the next date of hearing, the petitioner made two submissions : (a) They have their sufficient cause for not attending the Court on the relevant date and time; (b) Their case is factually distinguished with the decision reported in (1993) 2 SCC 185 : (1993 AIR SCW 1178 ).

( 11 ) ALTHOUGH this Court repeatedly wanted to know the facts and circumstances of the case first but again the learned Advocate wanted to indicate the distinguishing features of their case from (1993) 2 SCC 185 : (1993 AIR SCW 1178) to establish their case in a negative way.

( 12 ) AS I have understood from his argument that the litigant was n