Tarlok Singh Chauhan, J.

This petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India is directed against the order passed by the learned trial Court on 15.3.2016 whereby the applications filed by the respondents No.1 and 4 under Order 9 Rule 4 CPC have been allowed and orders dated 19.3.2011 and 21.11.2012 whereby these respondents had been proceeded ex-parte has been ordered to be set aside.

The facts in brief may be noticed thus.

2. The petitioner has filed suit for recovery against the respondents which is pending before the Learned trial Court. The respondents No.1 and 4 were duly served and did not contest the suit for 4-5 years and it is only thereafter that they filed applications for setting aside ex-parte order, which applications as observed above has been ordered to be allowed by the Learned trial Court.

3. The grievance of the petitioner is that the applications filed by respondents No.1 and 4 could not have been allowed as the same was based on falsehood. He has invited my attention to the application firstly filed by respondent No.1 wherein it is averred that the respondent has been serving in the Indian Army for the last 3 years and remained posted in the most sensitive areas. In addition to that he also remained on deputation with VIPs and as such did not receive any notice from the Court and was proceeded exparte on 19.3.2011. He further invited my attention to the summons issued to respondent No.1 which were in fact duly received by his wife and at the time the respondent No.1 himself was available at home.

4. As regards, the respondent No.4, the application filed for setting aside the ex parte order discloses that the only reason given for non-appearance is that she was residing at Ludhiana and came to know about the pendency of the case when she visited her native place. Where as, the notice issued to respondent No.4 which has been appended as Annexure P-1 with the petition discloses that the petitioner had personally received the summons on 16.2.2011 and therefore the explanation offered by her, like the one offered by the respondent no.1, is totally false.

5. Ordinarily, this Court would not interfere with matters which pertain to setting aside of exparte orders as it is more than settled that when technicalities are pitted against substantive justice, then obviously substantive justice has to prevail. However, the said principle would not apply to a case where a party does not approach the Court with clean hands, clean mind and a clean heart.

6. It is proved on record that the defence set up by the appellant was absolutely false. In Maria Margarida Sequeria Fernandes v. Erasmo Jack de Sequeria, (2012) 5 SCC 370, the Hon’ble Supreme Court held that false claims and defences are serious problems with the litigation. The Hon’ble Supreme Court held as under:-

84. False claims and defences are really serious problems with real estate litigation, predominantly because of ever escalating prices of the real estate. Litigation pertaining to valuable real estate properties is dragged on by unscrupulous litigants in the hope that the other party will tire out and ultimately would settle with them by paying a huge amount. This happens because of the enormous delay in adjudication of cases in our Courts. If pragmatic approach is adopted, then this problem can be minimized to a large extent."

7. In Dalip Singh v. State of U.P., (2010) 2 SCC 114, the Hon’ble Supreme Court observed that a new creed of litigants have cropped up in the last 40 years who do not have any respect for truth and shamelessly resort to falsehood and unethical means for achieving their goals. The observations of the Supreme Court are as under :-

"1. For many centuries, Indian society cherished two basic values of life i.e., 'Satya' (truth) and 'Ahinsa' (non-violence). Mahavir, Gautam Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi guided the people to ingrain these values in their daily life. Truth constituted an integral part of the justice-delivery system which was