The duty of the court to ensure honesty in proceedings and to prevent any taint of fraud or deception in the conduct of its ministers.

Pradeep Nandrajog, J.

1. The five sons of late Radhey Lal Gupta : (i) Narender Kumar Agrawal, (ii) Ravi Kumar, (iii) Amrish Kumar, (iv) Mahesh Kumar Gupta and (v) Sushil Gupta joined as co-plaintiffs and filed a suit for declaration, partition and rendition of accounts. Pradeep Gupta and Hari Gupta, sons of Vishnu Kumar Gupta were impleaded as defendants No.1 and 2. Vishnu Kumar Gupta and Suresh Kumar Gupta, sons of Radhey Lal Gupta were impleaded as defendants No.3 and 4. Laxmi Devi, Brijbala and Usha Rani, daughters of Radhey Lal Gupta were impleaded as defendants No.5 to 7. Plaintiff No.5 : Sushil Gupta instituted the plaint and he signed and verified the pleadings claiming that he had been authorized by his other four brothers to represent them.

2. It is apparent that the siblings, being the sons and daughters of Radhey Lal Gupta were litigating. Pradeep Gupta and Hari Gupta had been impleaded because they are the sons of Vishnu Kumar S/o Radhey Lal.

3. As per the plaint, the joint family came into being from the era of late Shri Anant Ram, father of late Shri Radhey Lal Gupta. As per the plaint the estate of the HUF comprised a property 188, Katra Bariyan, Fatehpuri, Delhi wherefrom transport business under the name M/s.Anant Ram Radhey Lal was conducted. It was pleaded that on December 03, 2001, a family settlement had been arrived at as per which 71% of the space in the building at Fatehpuri was allotted to the plaintiffs. In the plaint a right to property No.AG-63, Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar, New Delhi was made on the pleading that the same had been allotted in the names of seven sons of Radhey Lal, out of which five were the plaintiffs.

4. Defendant No.1 : Pradeep Gupta son of Vishnu Kumar Gupta filed a written statement pleading that the suit property had been taken on rent by Anant Ram and on his death Radhey Lal inherited the tenancy. In the year 1970 Radhey Lal surrendered the tenancy in favour of defendant No.1 and since then he had been paying rent of the property to the landlord. On October 29, 2001 he purchased the property, in which the seller had made a reference to the fact that as landlord he had accepted him as the tenant and now as the purchaser of the property. He pleaded that the firm Anant Ram Radhey Lal was his sole proprietary firm.

5. The suit meandered. Filed in the year 2001, even issues were not settled. Applications after applications were filed and hearing was deferred for one reason or the other till when IA No.10515/2006 (wrongly mentioned as IA No.10575/2006 in the order dated September 19, 2006) was filed under Order 23 Rule 3 read with Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

6. The application bears the signatures of Shri Sushil Kumar as also those of Pradeep Gupta -defendant No.1. Sharad Kumar Agrawal and Sangeeta Grover have also signed the application as counsels for the plaintiffs. One Sanjeev Srivastava has signed the application as the counsel for defendant No.1.

7. A compromise therein is recorded as per which the five plaintiffs were to receive Rs.1 lakh, Rs.50 thousand, Rs.1.50 lakhs, Rs.2 lakhs and Rs.2 lakhs to give up their right in the property at Fatehpuri as also Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar simultaneously recognizing defendant No.1 to be the full owner thereof. Affidavit in support of the application was deposed to by Sushil Kumar.

8. Listed before the Court on September 19, 2006, the application was accepted and in terms thereof the suit was disposed of. We only wish that the learned Single Judge had required the presence of the parties. One Atul Kumar Gupta appeared in the Court claiming to be the special attorney constituted by plaintiff No.5. He took the bank drafts in the names of the plaintiffs.

9. It so transpired that Atul Kumar Gupta, who took the bank drafts, is an advocate and is the son of Mahesh Kumar Gupta : plaintiff No.4. He was an associate advocate