A suit originally filed under summary procedure cannot later allow summary judgment under a different procedural order.

JUDGMENT :

MANOJ JAIN, J

1. Petitioner is defending a commercial suit.

2. Challenge in the present petition is to the order dated 01.04.2024 whereby the learned Trial Court has passed a summary judgment under Order XIII-A CPC and has directed the defendant (petitioner herein) to deposit an amount of Rs. 19.50 lacs in the Court in the form of a Fixed Deposit Receipt (FDR).

3. The question posed, herein, is pure legal in nature.

4. According to defendant, since the suit was "originally filed’ under summary procedure, there was legal embargo in seeking any judgment under Order XIII-A CPC.

5. Before coming to the aforesaid legal proposition, it will be appropriate to narrate background facts, albeit, in very brief.

6. Plaintiff has sought recovery of Rs. 53,77,197/- from the defendant for the services rendered by the plaintiff under one agreement dated 01.08.2020 executed between the parties. In terms of such agreement, plaintiff made payment with respect to the salary of workmen deployed at the defendant‟s organization. Since after such disbursal, plaintiff was entitled to reimbursement from the defendant and since such demand was not cleared by the defendant, plaintiff was compelled to file the aforesaid suit.

7. Suit is being resisted by the defendant and though the execution of agreement is not in dispute, according to defendant, plaintiff was in breach of the agreement and was under obligation to provide certain details which they never furnished and, therefore, there was no possibility of reconciliation of the accounts either. It also claimed that no "service charge‟ could have been claimed by the plaintiff from the month of March, 2021 as the services were put to halt after February, 2021. It also claimed that one blank-cheque was fraudulently misused and presented by the plaintiff, whereby, plaintiff has committed breach of trust in a planned manner and cheated the defendant.

8. The suit in question was earlier listed for consideration before a regular Court of District Judge and since it was brought to the notice of the aforesaid Court that the suit was commercial in nature and related to a commercial dispute, as per Section 2 (1)(c)(xviii) of Commercial Courts Act, 2015, the matter was placed before the learned Principal District & Sessions Judge for allocating the same to a Commercial Court.

9. This is how the the matter landed before a Commercial Court.

10. It also needs to be highlighted that the suit, in the first instance, had been filed under summary procedure i.e. under Order XXXVII CPC and remained so when it was first taken up by Commercial Court.

11. Learned District Judge (Commercial Court), however, after going through the averments made in the suit, while striking out the names of defendants nos. 2 to 4 from such suit, raised queries regarding the maintainability of such suit under summary procedure and pursuant to such query, learned counsel for the plaintiff made a statement that the suit be converted into an ordinary suit.

12. Statement to said effect was recorded by the learned Trial Court and, resultantly, suit was converted into an ordinary suit and summons for settlement of issues were directed to be sent.

13. During further pendency of the aforesaid suit, plaintiff moved an application seeking summary judgment under Order XIII-A CPC.

14. Such application was resisted and replied by the defendant and while taking other contentions, defendant took preliminary objection to the effect that invocation of Order XIII-A CPC was not permissible and sustainable as the suit in question had earlier been filed under summary procedure and, therefore, there was a legal bar as contained in Rule 1(3) of Order XIII-A CPC.

15. Such objection has, however, been disregarded by the learned Trial Court while observing that though the suit had been initially filed as sum