A trial court's order refusing adjournment may be set aside in revision under Section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure if the court exercised its discretion illegally or with material irregularity.

ORDER:- The facts giving rise to this revision lie within a narrow compass. A suit for malicious prosecution was filed by the petitioner which came to be fixed for hearing on 16-7-1979. On that day the plaintiff was present with six witnesses and he filed a petition to fix another date to record evidence of two witnesses mentioned in the petition. This prayer was rejected as would appear from the endorsement of the learned trial Court on the body of the petition itself. This has led the plaintiff to invoke the revisional jurisdiction of this Court.

2. Shri Sarma has urged that though a matter relating to granting an adjournment is within the discretion of Court, the same has to be exercised judicially and by taking into consideration all relevant materials. In the present case his submission is that the learned trial Court disposed of the petition for adjournment by one word rejected passed on the body of the petition and such a disposal cannot be regarded in accordance with law and it is a fit case where to set at naught the illegal exercise of jurisdiction of the learned trial Court, the impugned order should be quashed. It is urged that for one of the witnesses who was absent namely. Tilak Bora, steps for summoning him had been duly taken and as such the plaintiff was not at fault for his non-appearance. It is brought to my notice that the defendant had also prayed for time to which the learned trial Court had granted and so the progress of the suit would not have suffered by granting at least one further opportunity to the plaintiff.

3. In reply Shri Choudhary has urged that the grant of adjournment being a discretionary matter, no interference by this Court is permissible specially when no cause at all had been shown by the plaintiff for the absence of the witness in question. I am referred to Order 17, Rule 1 which has empowered the Court to grant adjournment after sufficient cause is shown. It is also contended by the learned counsel that the petition in question was not even verified which is so required by Rule 16 of the Civil Rules and Orders framed by the High Court. The further submission is that reasons are required to be recorded only when adjournment is granted and not when it is refused. This is sought to be brought home by referring to Rule 115(2) of the aforesaid Rules. It is lastly urged that the order in question cannot be regarded to be a case decided so as to attract Section 115 of the Code.

4. It would firstly be useful to deal with the last submission of Shri Choudhury. The meaning of the expression "any case which has been decided" appearing in Section 115 had been the subject matter of a number of decisions of the Supreme Court. The leading case on this is that of S.S. Khanna v. F.J. Dillon, AIR 1964 SC 497 where it was held that the expression case is not limited in its import to the entirety of the matter in dispute in an action and it was a word of comprehensive import and includes a civil proceeding. After referring to this decision it was pointed out in Baldevdas v. Filmistan Distributors. AIR 1970 SC 406 that (at P. 410):

"It was not decided in S.S. Khannas case ..... that every order of the Court in the course of a suit amounts to a case decided. A case may be said to be decided if the Court adjudicates for the purposes of the suit some right or obligation of the parties in controversy, every order in the suit cannot be regarded as a case decided within the meaning of Section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure."

5. The question is whether these decisions hold after the Explanation has been added to Section 115 by the Code of Civil Procedure (Amendment) Act, 1976. The Explanation reads:

"In this section the expression any case which has been decided includes any order made, or any order deciding an issue, in course of a suit or other proceeding."

6. It is contended by Shri Sarma that the Explanation has now made clear that every order made in course of a suit would be a case decided, as the