The Madhya Pradesh High Court at Indore has condoned a delay of 1,093 days in filing an application to set aside an ex parte decree in a land sale dispute, holding that a litigant should not suffer because of a lawyer’s mistake. Justice Vinay Saraf passed the order on October 8, 2026, while partly allowing a civil revision filed by Deepak Afle.
The Court directed Afle to pay ₹50,000 in costs to the plaintiff and remanded the matter to the trial court for a fresh decision on his application to set aside the decree. The High Court did not set aside the original decree itself.
Dharam Developers and Finvest Limited filed a suit in 2017 seeking specific performance of an agreement to sell and a perpetual injunction concerning 0.169 hectare of land in Village Machal, Tehsil Depalpur, Indore district.
Deepak Afle had purchased the land through a registered sale deed dated July 10, 2006. The company claimed that Afle agreed to sell the property on April 24, 2012, and that it had paid him ₹10 lakh as part consideration.
After the summons were returned unserved, the trial court permitted service through publication in the newspaper Nai Dunia. Afle did not appear, and the court proceeded ex parte on August 24, 2017. An ex parte judgment and decree followed on August 8, 2019.
Afle stated that he learned of the ex parte decree after receiving a notice in the execution proceedings in November 2019. He alleged that his lawyer, who appeared in the execution proceedings, failed to advise him to apply for setting aside the decree. In July 2022, Afle learned that the lawyer had shifted to Kerala. He then approached another lawyer, who advised him to file an application under Order IX Rule 13 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
The trial court rejected the delay application on April 13, 2024, and the District Court upheld that decision on February 28, 2025.
Justice Saraf held that a litigant should not suffer because of a lawyer’s mistake and found that the explanation justified condoning the delay. Referring to N. Balakrishnan v. M. Krishnamurthy, the Court reiterated that the acceptability of an explanation, rather than the length of delay alone, should guide condonation. It also considered the Supreme Court’s COVID-19 limitation-extension directions.
The High Court set aside both lower courts’ orders and condoned the delay, subject to Afle paying ₹50,000 in costs to the plaintiff.
The matter was remanded to the trial court to decide the application under Order IX Rule 13 CPC in accordance with law, without being influenced by the High Court’s observations. The High Court did not set aside the original ex parte decree itself.
Case Title: Deepak Afle v. Dharam Developers and Finvest Limited
Case Number: Civil Revision No. 514 of 2025
