1994 PLP 876 (CLC)

3. The Intervenor has claimed compensatory costs under Section 35‑A of the Code of Civil Procedure. Subsection (1) of that section provides: "If in any suit or other proceedings, including an execution proceedings, not being an appeal, any party objects to the claim or defence on the ground that the claim or defence or any part of it is, as against the objector, false or vexatious to the knowledge of the party by whom it has been put forward and if thereafter, against the objector, such claim or defence is disallowed, abandoned or withdrawn in whole or in part, the Court, if the objection has been taken at the earliest opportunity and if it is satisfied of the justice thereof, may after recording its reasons for holding such claim or defence to be false or vexatious, make an order for the payment to the objector by the party by whom such claim or defence has been put forward of costs by way of compensation." The above provision applies to any suit or other proceedings between the parties where: (i) either the claim or the defence is false or vexatious to the knowledge of the party putting if forward; (ii) any party to such suit or proceedings objects to such claim or defence on the ground that, as against it, such claim or defence is false or vexatious; (iii) the objection to such claim or defence is taken at the earliest opportunity; and (iv) such claim or defence, as against the party objecting thereto, is disallowed, abandoned or withdrawn in whole or in part. Costs, under Section 35‑A, C.P.C. can be granted in the event of objection being taken, by a party, to a claim or defence against such party. It follows that before a person can object to any claim or defence in a suit he has to be a party to such suit. The intervenor had, no doubt, applied to be impleaded as a party to the suits but those applications were dismissed in the circumstances mentioned above. The intervenor, consequently, was not a party to any of the suits and was not entitled to object to any claim in the suit.

4. Even on the footing that the intervenor was a party to the suits,' it appears that, the leases relied upon by the plaintiffs not being in dispute, the only real claim put forward by the plaintiffs was that the notices issued by the defendants were not valid. That claim was not against the intervenor and no objection could be, or was, taken to it by the intervenor.

5. Assuming that the claims in the suits were against the intervenor, it cannot be said that they were false or vexatious. The claims of the plaintiffs were that they were lessees of the lands in question and that the defendants were not entitled to cancel the leases or to issue the impugned notices to show cause. The claim that the leases of the lands had been granted to the plaintiffs was admitted by the defendants and the only dispute in the suits was whether the notices given by Mukhtiarkar to the plaintiffs were invalid for the reasons mentioned above. The suit was, in the circumstances, not false; and it was not a vexatious suit because it cannot be said that it was begun without a justifiable cause. In construing the word "vexatious" the attention should be directed less to the result and effect and more to the deliberate object of the complainant or the party, if any, to cause vexatious as well as his consciousness in the weakness or suspected falseness of his case.

6. Finally, the claim was neither disallowed, nor abandoned nor withdrawn. In fact the claim against the defendants was vindicated because the defendants withdrew the notices in consequence of which the suits had been filed.

7. It is not clear from the present applications whether the intervenor claims costs of the suits or of the applications under Order 1, Rule 10, C.P.C. For the reasons stated above, it is not entitled to costs of the suits. It is also not entitled to costs of the applications for the simple reason that no defence, let alone false or vexatious defence, has been put forward to those applications by any of the parties against whom they were directed. The applications are, therefore, liable to be, and are hereby, dismissed in limine, H.B.T./Q‑86/K ` Application dismissed,