'Rajasthan High Court Comes Down Heavily Against Non-Speaking Orders'

"Reason is the soul of an Order." This was the manner in which the Rajasthan High Court chose to highlight the importance of clearly setting out reasons for allowing or rejecting a prayer while considering an application made before a Court. In Devi Food Products v. A-One Products, the importance of such well-reasoned orders was considered from the perspective of the litigant, the higher courts and the society. It was thereafter clearly laid down that a non-speaking order or an order without proper reasons being spelt out would be bad in law and would be liable to be quashed.

Brief Facts of the Case:

A-One Products, had filed a suit for permanent injunction against Devi Food Products before the Additional District Court (Fast Track) under Sections 134 and 135 of the Trade Marks Act as well as Section 62 of the Copyright Act. Devi Food, after filing their written statement against the averments made by A-One, filed a separate Application praying for rejection of the Plaint under Order VII Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC). Although A-One had not filed any reply to the same, the Court chose to dismiss the application. Moreover, the Court while dismissing the application had not considered the objections raised by Devi Food. Aggrieved by the said order, the Devi Food approached the Rajasthan High Court with a plea to set aside the same and to allow the application for rejection of the Plaint.

It was brought to the attention of the High Court by Devi Food , that they had raised three main contentions in their Application. At the outset, they had raised the question whether the Proprietor of A-One, Shri Ramesh Chand Vijayvergia had any power to institute the suit, in the absence of any documents to prove his proprietorship. Secondly, it was insisted that the Jaipur Court lacked territorial jurisdiction to try the case since the cause of action did not arise there. Lastly, it was alleged that the valuation of the suit had been incorrectly done and sufficient Court fees had not been paid. Devi Food was aggrieved that despite such contentions, the District Court had failed to discuss the same and a non-speaking order had been passed.

A-One, on the other hand, vehemently contended that the order was not erroneous and that it was legally sound.

After examining the said order, the High Court of Rajasthan termed it as 'highly cryptic' and observed that although the Court had noticed the contentions of Devi Food, the same had not been...