Parties may restrict jurisdiction to a designated court by agreement, provided that court holds jurisdiction over the matter.

JUDGMENT :

G.S. Sandhawalia, CJ.

1. The present Letters Patent Appeal is directed against order dated 01.07.2024, passed by the learned Single Judge in Civil Suit No. 131 of 2022, wherein Issue No. 10 was treated as a Preliminary Issue, which was pertaining to the issue of territorial jurisdiction that whether this Court has jurisdiction to hear and entertain the suit in question.

2. Vide the aforesaid order, the learned Single Judge held that only the Courts at Delhi would have exclusive jurisdiction, as the parties had agreed by way of contract enteredby them and the plaint was ordered to be returned to the plaintiff for its presentation before the appropriate Court having territorial jurisdiction.

3. Learned Counsel for the appellant/plaintiff places reliance upon two judgments of the Apex Court, i.e. Union of India & others Vs. Adani Exports Ltd. & another, (2002) 1 SCC 567 and Laxman Prasad Vs. Prodigy Electronic Ltd. & another, 2018 (1) SCC 618, to contend that the order passed by the learned Single Judge is not justified.

4. It is not disputed that the judgments relied upon now, were also cited by the learned Counsel for the appellant/plaintiff before the learned Single Judge and the learned Single Judge rightly distinguished them.

5. A perusal of the judgment rendered by the Apex Court in Adani Exports Ltd. (supra) would go on to show that the Apex Court had allowed the appeals and held that the High Court at Ahmedabad had no territorial jurisdiction as no part of cause of action arose in territorial jurisdiction of the said High Court.

6. In the aforesaid judgment, the Apex Court held that merely since business of export and import was carried out and that the parties are receiving the export and import orders at Ahmedabad, it had no connection whatsoever with the dispute involved and would not give a cause of action to the Courts at Ahmedabad. It further held that the Designated Authority, who is the competent person in respect of the matters concerning the Pass Book Scheme and who discharges various functions under the Scheme was also stationed at Chennai. It further held that the entries in the pass-book under the concerned Scheme are to be made by the authorities at Chennai and the export of prawn made by the respondents and the import of the inputs benefit of which the respondents are seeking the applications, also would have to be made through the same Port i.e. Chennai. In such circumstances, the matter was transferred to the High Court of Madras at Chennai. Therefore, the said case would be of no assistance to the appellant.

7. Apparently in the present case, the cause of action arose on account of appointment letter issued to the appellant/plaintiff on 4^th October, 2021 to the post of Senior Software Engineer, Department of IT. The location of posting of the plaintiff/appellant was at Bangalore as Senior Software Engineer in IT and the joining of duty was also online on 22.11.2021. The services of the appellant/plaintiff were terminated vide order dated 31.05.2022, which was the subject matter of consideration in the suit in question.

8. Vide order dated 27.05.2024, the learned Single Judge had framed as many as twelve Issues and since an objection had been taken pertaining to jurisdiction, the said issue was treated as a preliminary issue and the matter was listed for consideration and thereafter, the order under challenge was passed on 01.07.2024.

9. The learned Single Judge found that the parties had agreed as such to exclude the jurisdiction of this