Tata Motors Finance Limited v. Bijay Rai
09.01.2024 S/L. No. 13 Court No. 3 Suvayan/ Sourav FMA 1176 of 2022 With CAN 1 of 2022 Tata Motors Finance Limited Vs.
Bijay Rai Mr. Snehashis Sen ...for the appellant.
Mr. Shubham Gupta Mr. Rajiv Kumar Mr. Satyabrata Das ...for the respondent.
1.
Both the parties are represented by their respective learned Advocates.
2.
In this appeal the Order No. 2 dated 01.08.2022 as passed in Title Suit No. 1623 of 2022 by learned Judge, Bench XII, City Civil Court at Calcutta has been impugned.
3.
By the impugned order learned Trial Court while entertaining an application under Order 39 Rules 1 and 2 read with Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure passed an ad interim order of injunction restraining the defendant from disturbing the peaceful possession, right, title, interest and enjoyment in respect of vehicle No. WB-11F-2335 save and except by due process of law.
4.
The defendant felt aggrieved and, thus, preferred the instant appeal.
5.
At the time of hearing of the instant appeal learned Advocate for the appellant strongly contended that learned Trial Court while passing the said ad interim order of injunction ought to have considered that Title Suit No. 1623 of 2022 which is pending before him is a suit of commercial nature where there is a clause of arbitration. It is further argued that in a purely commercial contract between the parties the learned Trial Court ought to have been very slow in passing an ad interim order of injunction following the principle of law as discussed in the order dated 18.07.2023 passed in FMAT 444 of 2022 (Sanowar Hossain Mondal vs. Tata Motors Finance Limited) as passed by a co-ordinate Bench of this Court.
6.
While opposing such prayer learned Advocate for the plaintiff/respondent strongly contended that such point as raised by learned Advocate for the appellant can very well be agitated before the learned Trial Court at the time of hearing of the injunction application on contest. It further contended on behalf of the plaintiff/respondent that in terms of the impugned order his client is regularly paying the installments and he has paid such installments till September, 2023.
7.
On perusal of the entire materials as placed before us, we find that while passing the
impugned order of ad interim injunction learned Trial Court has duly considered the three basic criterions of granting injunction. It appears to us that the present appellant being the defendant in Title Suit No. 1623 of 2022 still has sufficient opportunity to ventilate his grievance with regard to the maintainability of the said order of ad interim injunction as well as with regard to the maintainability of the said suit in view of the submission of the learned Advocate for the appellant that in between the parties there exists an arbitration agreement in a commercial contract between the parties though which has been disputed by the learned Advocate for the plaintiff/respondent.
8.
We are apprise of the situation that scope of appeal against an order of ad interim injunction is very limited and we are not supposed to make any further comment which may affect the finding of the learned Trial Court while disposing the injunction application on contest as well as the suit.
9.
In view of the discussion supra, we find no merit in the instant appeal and accordingly the instant appeal is disposed of with an observation that injunction application shall be disposed of finally within a period of three months from the date of receipt of a copy of this order and while
disposing the said application, learned Court below may take into consideration the question of equity in as much as repayment by the plaintiff/respondent is a bounden duty on his part as per the solemn terms of the contract between the parties. If the plaintiff has failed in making repayment though he is in possession of the vehicle in question, equity may not favour. 10.
Accordingly, the appeal being FMA 1176 of 2022 along with interim application being CAN 1 of 2022 is disposed of.
(Chitta Ranjan Dash, J.) (Partha Sarathi Sen, J.)