The court upheld the trial court's dismissal of the application to reject the plaint, affirming correct application of the Commercial Courts Act regarding suit transfer.

O R D E R

Challenging the dismissal of their application for rejecting the plaint, the defendants are before this Court.

2. The short facts are as follows:-

3. The respondent/plaintiff had filed a suit COS.No.6 of 2022 on the file of the Principal Sub Judge, Erode for recovery of a sum of Rs.13,60,174/- with future interest at the rate of 18% per annum from the date of the suit till the date of payment.

4. The respondent/plaintiff would contend that they had entered into a contract with the defendants for biometric enrollment that is to perform the field work of generating UID numbers which is otherwise called as “AADHAR”. The defendants were entrusted with the biometric enrollment work for certain areas in the State of Tamilnadu and Karnataka. The plaintiff supplied the manpower and performed the biometric enrollment field work.

5. The plaintiff would submit that they had made the following enrollments-

i. 37,337 enrollments in Tamilnadu under the Registrar-Bank of Baroda;

ii. 1,70,775 enrollments in Bellary under the Registrar-

Department of Posts;

iii. 16,766 enrollments in Bellary under the Regsitrar-Bank of Baroda.

6. According to the terms of the agreement, the defendants were liable to pay a sum of Rs.54,03,078.50/-. As against the aforesaid claim, the defendants had paid a total sum of Rs.40,42,904/- leaving the balance of Rs.13,60,174/-.

7. The plaintiff would submit that the defendants had received the payments from their Registrar, namely, Bank of Baroda and Department of Post. However, the defendants had not paid the amount to the plaintiff despite several requests. Therefore, the plaintiff was constrained to file the above suit.

8. A written statement came to be filed denying the claim of the petitioner/plaintiff. The defendants had raised the plea that there was no cause of action for the suit and that it was barred by limitation. That apart, they had also contended that the 1^st defendant/company has its registered office at Bangalore and the 2nd defendant its Managing Director is only operating from that office and does not have any office within the legal jurisdiction of the I Additional and District Court, Erode. Therefore, they had also questioned jurisdiction. They would further contend that the quality of work discharged by the plaintiff was not up to the mark and as a result of which the defendants had suffered a loss of reputation and also monetary loss as the Registrar who had engaged the services of the defendants had rejected the work on account of its poor quality, failed to release the payment and imposed high penalty. In short the defendants denied the claim of the plaintiff.

9. After the suit was posted for adducing evidence on the side of the defendants, the defendants had come forward with the application in IA.No..9 of 2024 for rejecting the plaint.

10. The grounds for rejecting the plaint are as follows:-

(i) Pre-institutional mediation and settlement proceedings which are mandatory have not been followed.

(ii) In the middle of the proceedings, changing the nature of the suit from a money suit to a commercial court suit cannot be permitted.

11. A counter was filed stating that none of the reasons stated in the affidavit filed in support of the petition would consist a ground for rejecting the plaint.

12. The learned Trial Judge after considering the arguments on both sides dismissed the said application on the ground that Section 15 of the Commercial Courts Act which deal with transfer of pending cases clearly states that where a suit is transferred to the Commercial Court under Sub Section 1 of Sub Section 2, the provisions of the Act shall apply to those procedures that were not completed at the time of the transfer. This means that the suit would be taken up by the Commercia