The main legal point established is that a plaintiff may be entitled to summary judgment under specific provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure, and contractual terms regarding interest rates are enforceable.

M. Sundar, J.

The aforesaid application i.e., A.No.7229 of 2018 has been taken out under order XIII-A of 'The Code of Civil Procedure, 1908' ('C.P.C.' for brevity) as amended by 'The Commercial Courts Act, 2015' ('said Act' for brevity) with a prayer for summary judgment.

2. Mr.K.Mahalingam, learned counsel on record for the sole plaintiff is before this Commercial Division and learned counsel requested that a summary judgment in the main suit itself may please be passed, as the defendant has no real prospects of successfully defending the claim and that there is no other compelling reason as to why the claim of the plaintiff should not be disposed of before recording oral evidence.

3. In support of his aforesaid submission, learned counsel pointed out that the sole defendant has been duly served with suit summons on 01.03.2017, but had not chosen to either enter appearance through a counsel or come before this court in any other manner. It is also pointed out that, thereafter the sole defendant was set ex-parte on 05.02.2018. Though obvious, it is also brought to my notice that sole defendant has not filed any written statement.

4. It is in the aforesaid circumstances, the aforesaid application for summary judgment has been taken out and obviously issues have not been framed. Therefore the stage on which the aforesaid application for summary judgment has been taken out is in order, is learned counsel for plaintiff counsel's say.

5. I deem it appropriate to examine the prayer for summary judgment under order XIII-A of C.P.C. as amended by the said Act. In other words, I examine the entitlement of the plaintiff to get a summary judgment against the defendant without recording oral evidence with regard to the suit claim.

6. A perusal of amended C.P.C. as amended by the said Act, particularly sub-Rule (3) of Rule 1 of Order XIII-A reveals that an application for summary judgment under Order XIII-A cannot be made in a suit in respect of any Commercial Dispute that has originally been filed as a summary suit. It is not in dispute that the instant suit, which is a Commercial Dispute, was originally filed as a summary suit under Order XXXVII of C.P.C.

7. Faced with the above situation, learned counsel for plaintiff requested this Court to treat this application i.e. A.No.7229 of 2018 as a prayer under clause (a) of sub-Rule (6) of Rule 3 of Order XXXVII C.P.C. Clause (a) of sub-Rule (6) of Rule 3 of Order XXXVII C.P.C. reads as follows:

'(a) if the defendant has not applied for leave to defend, or if such application has been made and is refused, the plaintiff shall be entitled to judgment forthwith;'

8. It is pointed out that entire Order XXXVII of C.P.C. has not been amended in any manner by said Act. Therefore, the powers of this Court i.e., Commercial Division under Order XXXVII remain intact. When the Court otherwise has powers, quoting of the wrong provision will not take away the powers of the Court and therefore, there is no difficulty in acceding to the request of the learned counsel for plaintiff to treat this as a prayer under Clause (a) of Sub-Rule (6) of Rule 3 of Order XXXVII of C.P.C.

9. The trajectory of the suit above will reveal that the sole defendant though duly served with suit summons on 01.03.2017, has not, within 10 days from the date of such service, entered appearance either in person or by a pleader. Likewise, the defendant within those 10 days has not chosen to file any affidavit or otherwise disclosing such facts as may be deemed sufficient to entitle the defendant to defend, apply on such summons for leave to defend such suit, as provided for under sub-Rule (5) of Rule 3 of Order XXXVII of C.P.C.

10. In the above backdrop, I now turn to the suit itself.

11. Short facts, as they unfurl from the plaint averments, reveal that the plaintiff is a company, which is engaged in the business of generating and selling electricity/power/energy. It is the case of the plaintiff that the defendant approached the plaintiff