Procedural laws should serve the cause of justice and not obstruct it. Rules of procedure should be subservient to the goal of achieving justice.

Tarlok Singh Chauhan, Judge (Oral).

This petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India is directed against the order passed by the learned trial Court on 31.10.2014 whereby the applications filed by the petitioner under Order XVI read with Section 151 CPC and another application under Section 151 CPC came to be dismissed.

2. This is unfortunate family dispute. In view of the nature of order I propose to pass, the facts in detail, need not be stated.

3. The defendant No.1 had moved two applications. In the application under Section 151 CPC the defendant had sought the permission to lead additional evidence by way of oral evidence of Rishi Thakur S/o late Sh. Sukhdev Singh. It was alleged that in the summons issued to the marginal witnesses of the Will dated 26.01.1969 which has been challenged by the plaintiff, it had been reported that he had died about 16 years back and, therefore, it was necessary to examine his son Rishi Thakur, who could depose about the signature of his late father.

4. Another application was filed by the petitioner under Order XVI read with Section 151 CPC for allowing the defendant/petitioner to examine defendant No.6 in evidence. It was alleged that defendant No.6 is the real brother of the plaintiff and other defendants and son of defendant No.2, who had not contested the suit nor stepped into the witness box, but now he was available and ready to depose regarding the signatures of the marginal witnesses as also his father who was executant of the Will.

5. The learned trial Court vide common order rejected these applications mainly influenced by the fact that issues in the case had been struck on 17.3.2011 and after recording the evidence the case had been fixed for final arguments since 16.4.2013.

6. I have heard learned counsel for the parties and have gone through the records of the case carefully.

7. It cannot be disputed that there has been inordinate delay on the part of the petitioner in filing the aforesaid applications. But can the rights of the petitioner be defeated only on account of there being delay in filing of the applications?

8. The proposition that Rules of Procedure are handmaid of justice and cannot take away the residuary power in Judges to act ex debito justitiae, where otherwise it would be wholly inequitable, is by now well founded.

9. It must be remembered that the Courts are respected not on account of its power to legalize injustice on technical grounds but because it is capable of removing injustice and is expected to do so and further taking into consideration the fact that when substantial justice and technical considerations are pitted against each other, cause of substantial justice deserves to be preferred for the other side cannot claim to have vested right in injustice being done.

10. All the rules of procedure are the handmaid of justice. The language employed by the draftsman of processual law may be liberal or stringent, but the fact remains that the object of prescribing procedure is to advance the cause of justice. In an adversarial system, no party should ordinarily be denied the opportunity of participating in the process of justice dispensation. Unless compelled by express and specific language of the Statute, the provisions of the CPC or any other procedural enactment ought not to be construed in a manner which would leave the court helpless to meet extraordinary situations in the ends of justice.

11. The mortality of justice at the hands of law troubles a Judge’s conscience and points an angry interrogation at the law reformer.

12. Processual law is not to be a tyrant but a servant, not an obstruction but an aid to justice. Procedural prescriptions are the handmaid and not the mistress, a lubricant, not a resistant in the administration of justice.

13. It is useful to quote the oft-quoted passage of Lord Penzance in 1879 (4) AC 504:

“Procedure is but the machinery of the law after all the channel and means whereby law is administered and