The High Court
Case Details
IN THE HIGH COURT OF ORISSA AT CUTTACK TRP(C) No.304 of 2022 Debabrata Mohanty …. Petitioner -versus- Swarnamayee Mohanty …. Opposite Party CORAM: JUSTICE BIRAJA PRASANNA SATAPATHY
Decision
ORDER 06.02.2023 Order No 07. 1. This matter is taken up through Hybrid Arrangement (Virtual/Physical) Mode. 2. Heard Mr. MBK Rao, learned counsel for the Petitioner and Mr. B. Nayak, learned counsel appearing for the Opp. Party. 3. This transfer petition has been filed seeking transfer of C.S. No. 01 of 2022 pending in the file of learned Judge, Commercial Court, Cuttack. 4. Mr. Rao, learned counsel for the Petitioner contended that since the Parties are in litigating terms and three (3) other suits in C.S. Nos.263, 264 & 265 of 2022 are pending adjudication before the learned Civil Judge (Sr. Division), Dhenkanal, the suit filed by the Opp. Party before the learned Commercial Court in C.S. No. 01 of 2022 is required to be transferred to the Court of learned Civil Judge (Sr. Division), Dhenkanal for effectual adjudication of the dispute. 5. Mr. Nayak, learned counsel appearing for the Opp. Party on the other hand contended that C.S. No. 01 of 2022 has been initiated as per the provisions contained under Sec. 6 of the Commercial Court’s Act, 2015. It is contended that the jurisdiction of // 2 // Commercial Court in the State with their specified territorial jurisdiction have been fixed by this Court and the said provision is contained under Sec. 6 of the Commercial Court’s Act, 2015. It is also contended that after coming into force of the Commercial Court’s Act, 2015 and as provided under Sec. 15 of the said Act, all suits and applications, including applications under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1966, relating to a commercial dispute of a Specified Value pending in High Court where a Commercial Division has been constituted, shall be transferred to the Commercial Division. It is accordingly contended that since the dispute involved comes within the jurisdiction of the Commercial Court’s Act, 2015, the proceeding cannot be tried by an ordinary Civil Court. 6. Mr. Nayak, learned counsel appearing for the Opp. Party in support of his aforesaid submission relied on a decision of the Hon’ble Apex Court in the case of Ethiopian Airlines Vrs. Ganesh Narain Saboo, (2011) 8 SCC 539. Hon’ble Apex Court in Para 73 & 74 of the said Judgment has held as follows:- “73. It is a settled principle of statutory interpretation that specific statutes that come later in time trump prior general statutes. Both the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 and the Carriage by Air Act, 1972, which came long after the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, are more focused and specific statutes and, therefore, should be held to supersede Section 86 of the Code. This Court in Savita Garg has clearly laid down that the principle that in fora created by the Consumer Act, the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure are applicable only to a limited extent, therefore, the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure have not been made applicable to the proceedings of the National Consumer Forum. Page 2 of 4 // 3 // 74. This Court in Vishwabharathi House Building Coop. Society dealt with the object of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986: to provide expeditious f adjudication of consumers' complaints by adopting summary procedure. The Consumer Protection Act, 1986 is a comprehensive and self-contained piece of legislation, and its object is to decide consumers' complaints expeditiously, via summary procedure. The Consumer Protection Act, 1986 also permits authorised agents to appear on behalf of the complainants in order to ensure that they are not burdened with the heavy professional fees of lawyers.” 7. Mr. Nayak also relied on another decision of the Allhabad High Court in the case of Shankar Lal Jaiswal V. Asha Devi & 10 Ors. reported in 2018 SCC OnLine All 2545. The High Court of Allahabad in Para 16 & 17 of the order has held as follows:- “16. Since a Claims Tribunal is created by a notification of the State Government under the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act, it cannot be said that such Tribunal is a Court subordinate to the High Court within the meaning of the term occurring in Section 24 CPC, despite the fact that an award of the Claims Tribunal is appealable to the High Court under Section 173. 17. In this regard, it would also be relevant to refer to the decision of the Apex Court in Ethiopian Airlines v. Ganesh Narain Saboo, (2011) 8 SCC 539, wherein it ra been held that specific statutes that come later time, supersede prior general statutes. It was held that the Consumer Protection and Carriage by Air Acts being more focused and specific statutes and have been enacted later to the CPC, they must be deemed to be Special Acts in respect of cases covered by them and for this reason, the provisions of the CPC have limited applicability to them. 8. Having heard learned counsel for the Parties and after going through the materials available on record, it is found that C.S. No. 1 of 2022 has been initiated by the Opp. Party as per the provision contained under Sec. 6 of the Commercial Court’s Act, 2015. Since Page 3 of 4 // 4 // the Commercial Court’s Act, 2015 is a special Act, in view of the definition given under Sec. 2(b) and 2(c) of the Commercial Court’s Act, 2015, it is the Commercial Court before whom C.S. No. 1 of 2022 has been filed, is competent to decide the claim. The power vested on the Commercial Court as per the provision contained under the Commercial Court’s Act, 2015 as per the considered view of this Court cannot be exercised by any ordinary civil Court. Therefore, in view of the fact that C.S. No. 1 of 2022 has been instituted under the provisions of the Commercial Court’s Act, 2015, the prayer made by the Petitioner for transfer of the same to the Court of learned Civil Judge (Sr. Division), Dhenkanal is not entertainable. 8. Accordingly, this Court is not inclined to entertain the prayer and dismiss the transfer petition. Sneha (Biraja Prasanna Satapathy) Judge Page 4 of 4