HC rejects plea to quash ex parte decree over summons claim

The High Court has ruled that a petition seeking to quash an ex parte decree on the ground that the defendant did not receive summons is not maintainable if evidence shows the summons was served at the defendant’s correct address.

The court made the observation while dismissing a rule issued in a civil revision filed under Order IX, Rule 13 of the Code of Civil Procedure. It also lifted the stay previously imposed on the trial court’s judgment and order.

Justice Md Rezaul Karim delivered the verdict on July 21. The full judgment was published recently in the case of Md Manjur Rahman Mandal and others vs Md Latifa Bewa and others.

The case originated in 2000 when Latifa Bewa and others filed a partition suit involving 91 acres of land before the Senior Assistant Judge’s Court in Joypurhat. Manjur Rahman Mandal and others were defendants in the case.

On August 16, 2001, the court passed an ex parte decree after the defendants failed to appear. They later claimed that they had never received summons and were unaware of the case.

In 2002, they filed a miscellaneous case seeking cancellation of the ex parte decree, alleging that the plaintiffs had obtained it by submitting a false service report.

The Senior Assistant Judge dismissed the petition in 2008. The defendants appealed, but the Additional District Judge’s Court dismissed the appeal in 2011 and upheld the lower court’s decision.

The defendants then filed a civil revision before the High Court in 2012.

The High Court found that both lower courts had reached the same conclusion after examining the evidence that the summons had been sent to the defendants’ actual address and received by a close relative on their behalf.

The court noted that the first petitioner himself had admitted the matter during his evidence and cross-examination.

Finding no legal error in the decisions of the lower courts, the High Court dismissed the rule and lifted the stay on the trial court’s judgment and order.

SKS