The Defendant must prove a fair or bonafide defense to be granted leave to defend a summary suit.

Aggrieved by dismissal of Application filed under O.37 R.3 C.P.C declining leave to defend suit, Defendant has preferred this Civil Revision Petition.

2. Whether Impugned Order declining leave to defend the Suit on the ground that no triable issue has been disclosed suffers from serious infirmity is the point falling for consideration in this Revision Petition.

3. This Revision arises on the following facts:- Respondent/Plaintiff filed summary suit based on Promissory Note in O.S.No.6064 of 2005 against Defendant for recovery of a sum of Rs.2,82,000/- together with future interest. The Petitioner/Defendant filed Application seeking leave to defend contending that he has never borrowed loan amount and never executed Promissory Note as claimed by the Plaintiff. The Petitioner/Defendant has further alleged that Suit Promissory Note is forged one and signature found in the Promissory Note is not the signature of the Petitioner/Defendant.

4. Holding that Petitioner has raised vague allegations in order to evade his liability to pay the dues to the Respondent and further holding that the Petitioner has not raised any triable issue, Court below dismissed the Application, which is impugned in this Revision.

5. Placing reliance upon number of decisions, learned counsel for the Revision Petitioner contended that disputes cannot be determined even at the time of inception. It was further submitted that the Defendant has raised plea of forgery, which is triable issue sufficient enough to grant leave to defend the Suit.

6. Drawing attention of Court to various transactions, learned counsel for Respondent/Plaintiff has submitted that vague allegation of denial of signature in Promissory Suit cannot be the ground for granting leave to defend. It was further submitted that absolutely there was no necessity for Respondent to forge the signature of the Petitioner and it is the duty of the Petitioner to prove such baseless allegations.

7. Learned counsel for the Petitioner has relied upon the following decisions:

(i) N. Krishnan Vs T.R. Kuppusamy (1998 (II) C.T.C.730); (ii)V. Samuel Vs Thabak Finance Corporation (2001 (3) C.T.C. 420); (iii) N. Prabakaran Vs Manager, City Bank (2001 (4) C.T.C. 178) and (iv) K. Vasantha Devi and Another ..Vs.. Mahesh Kumar Rathi (2004 (3) C.T.C. 321).

Reliance is placed on the above decisions for the contention that when there was triable issue in the sense when there was fair dispute to be tried, Court cannot reject the defence of the Defendant. The test of triable issue is to find out whether the Defendant would be able to resist the suit successfully. If he proves his case, it is left to the discretion of the Trial Court to conclude on materials placed before it whether triable issues have arisen. The well established principle which govern O.37 R.3 C.P.C is laid down by the Supreme Court in the decision reported in Mechelec Engineers & Manufacturers Vs Basic Equipment Corporation (A.I.R. 1977 S.C. 577). Holding that the grounds upon which leave to defend was granted were quite reasonable and observing that High Court was not justified in interfering with the order of grant of leave, the Supreme Court referred to Kiranmoyee Dassi and Another Vs Dr. J. Chatterji (49 CWN 246), in which after a comprehensive review of the authorities, the following propositions were formulated in considering the application to grant unconditional leave:-

(a)If the Defendant satisfies the Court that he has a good chance to the claim on its merits the Plaintiff is not entitled to leave to sign Judgment and the Defendant is entitled to unconditional leave to defend.

(b)If the Defendant raises a triable issue indicating that he has a fair or bonafide or reasonable defence although not a positively good defence the Plaintiff is not entitled to sign Judgment and the Defendant is entitled to unconditional leave to defend.

(c)If the Defendant discloses such facts as may be deemed sufficient to entitle him to defend, t