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Judgment
Under challenge is the order dated 8.1.2018 whereby Addl. Senior Civil Judge, Dausa, District Dausa has dismissed the application filed by the
petitioner-defendant no.3 (hereafter ''the defendant'') under Order 9 Rule 7 CPC for setting aside ex-parte proceedings drawn against her in an
election petition laid at the instance of Election Petitioner.
The trial court while dismissing the said application in its order dated 8.1.2018 has observed that the defence of the defendant that neither any
summon / notice was served upon her nor she refused to accept the summon of the court was of little consequence for the reason that substituted
service was affected upon her by publication of summon and notice in daily news paper Dainik Navjyoti circulating in the locality where she
resided. Further, the application for setting aside the ex-parte proceedings was filed on 6.1.2018 after a delay of two and half years as the order
for initiating ex-parte proceedings had been passed on 4.7.2015. There was neither any explanation for filing the said application belatedly nor an
application under Section 5 of the Limitation Act was filed for condoning the delay.
In my view, trial court court has rightly dismissed the application in exercise of its discretion on an objective consideration of the facts of the
case, from which it is apparent that the petitioner as the defendant in the election petition wanted to procrastinate the trial and substantially
succeeded as about 3 of her five year term as Sarpanch have already gone by. And it is on record that the trial in the election petition laid by the
respondent - Election Petitioner has only be expedited after the direction of the High Court on 20.12.2017 in S.B. Civil Writ Petition No.
23135/2017 for disposal of the election petition within four months.
Counsel for the defendant has not been able to make out a case of the impugned order suffering from any perversity or misdirection in law. No
litigant can be allowed to abuse the process of the court, take them for granted and/ or create hindrance in trial. The trial court has ample power to
conduct and regulate the trial in accordance with law including making the defendant ex-parte for failure to file presence before it despite service as
provided in law. It is not for this court in the exercise of its power of superintendence under Article 227 of the Constitution of India to interfere with
the discretion of the courts below exercised in the course of trial. Casual exercise of this court''s jurisdiction can be fatal to the administration of
justice.
The impugned order of the trial court in the facts of the case is just and proper. I find no force in the petition. The same is dismissed.