MRKR Constructions and Industries Pvt Ltd v. Complete Dewatering Systems Pvt Ltd

1. Petitioner is defending a commercial suit which seeks recovery of Rs. 23,50,874/- with interest.

2. The plaintiff-M/s Complete Dewatering Systems Pvt. Ltd. is engaged in business of dewatering services and provides services by giving their dewatering equipments.

3. The defendant Company (petitioner herein) approached the plaintiff for carrying out certain dewatering work at their project situated in Telangana and after discussing the modalities of such dewatering work, an offer letter was given which contained terms and conditions with respect to such work.

4. The plaintiff, even, dispatched its equipments to the project-site and the dewatering work started w.e.f. 15.09.2021 and continued upto 05.02.2022. CM(M) 403/2025 2

5. The issue in the abovesaid suit is with respect to the non-payment of the bills/invoices which have been raised by the plaintiff, from time to time, in accordance with the agreed terms.

6. The suit was resisted by the defendant and it, inter alia, mentioned as under in para 6 of its preliminary submissions:-

7. While controverting the abovesaid fact, a replication was filed by plaintiff and para 6, 7 and 8 of the above said replication read as under:-

CM(M) 403/2025 3 and separate outstanding were there against both the parties. The Defendant has itself attached with the Written Statement an email written by the Plaintiff to Executive Engineer, Irrigation Department (attaching the account statement of both the parties separately) to seek help for getting the outstanding payments released from the Defendant as well as M/s Sarala Project Works Private Limited. Even in the said email, the Plaintiff has distinctly referred to the outstanding against both the parties wherein it was specified that an amount of Rs. 23,50,874/- was outstanding against the Defendant while an amount of Rs. 11,14,179/- was outstanding against M/s Sarala Project Works Private Limited. Subsequent to the said email, the outstanding against M/s Sarala Project Works Private Limited was received by the Plaintiff while the outstanding against the Defendant remained pending. The Defendant is trying to wrongly claim benefit of existence of another Company upon the project to evade its contractual liability and that is the reason why the Defendant has with mala fide avoided to attach in its Written Statement the account statements supplied by the Plaintiff along with the very same email which has been annexed by the Defendant and referred hereinabove. The account statements make the outstandings against both the parties crystal clear and the same are being attached by the Plaintiff herein for full disclosure and convenience of this Hon’ble Court. Copy of the email dated 11.03.2023 along with the Account Statements of both the parties are annexed herewith as Annexure 2 (Colly).”

8. The controversy in hand relates to dismissal of application moved by defendant under Order XI read with Section 151 CPC whereby the defendant is seeking recovery and production of certain log-books in possession of plaintiff which pertains to the record of diesel used during the period in question at the project site of the defendant. Para 4 of said application reads as under:-

CM(M) 403/2025 4 just adjudication of the claim of the Plaintiff to show that the other Company, i.e. M/s Sarala Projects was liable to pay the remaining amount since the said Sarala Projects Ltd. was working on the same project and using the equipment of the Plaintiff during the same time period. That, the Plaintiff has by way of clever drafting sought to implicate the Defendant for dues which were not even liable to be paid by the Defendant, but rather by another entity which was using the same at the same project site.”

9. Learned District Commercial Court vide order dated 30.01.2025 has disallowed the abovesaid request and such order is under challenge.

10. As is obvious, the petitioner is seeking recovery of its dues and the recovery is based on a specific work-contract and, therefore, it is, in first place, imperative for any such plaintiff to prove its case. Moreover, the log-books which the defendant wants to be placed on record does not, strictly speaking, relate to the controversy in question and, even if, such equipments were used by some other entity i.e. M/s Sarala Projects Pvt. Ltd. which, too, was, allegedly, working on a common project, it would not, ipso facto, mean that the plaintiff should be directed to place on record such log-books.