In a recent court case, the Bombay High Court, led by Judge Jitendra Jain, threw out a business-related lawsuit because the people bringing the case didn't follow the required steps to try to solve the problem before going to court. Here's what happened in this legal situation.
The case was between M/s. Image Developer and M/s. Segment Developers Pvt. Ltd. (the people bringing the case) and M/s. Kamla Landmarc Real Estate Holding Private Limited and others (the people they were suing). The fight was about a deal made in 1995 to develop some property.
The problem started with a deal made on May 7, 1995, between a group of societies and a development company to redo a property. Over time, different deals and changes were made, including a big change in 2010, which was the main issue in the disagreement.
According to the people bringing the case, on December 5, 2023, the people they were suing broke the 2010 deal by making a new deal without doing what they were supposed to do first. This led the people bringing the case to say they were ending the deal on January 19, 2024.
"The people bringing the case ended the deal... because of several problems including not paying what was agreed and not giving apartments to members."
The people bringing the case filed the lawsuit on November 30, 2024, but didn't try to solve the problem through required talks before going to court. The people they were suing said that the people bringing the case couldn't skip this step, which is necessary unless something urgent needs to be fixed right away.
Judge Jitendra Jain decided that the people bringing the case didn't show any urgent need to skip the talks. The lawsuit was filed months after the problems happened, and they didn't ask the court to step in right away.
"The request of the people bringing the case to skip the talks required by Section 12-A of the CC Act cannot be accepted..."
The court stressed how important it is to try to solve business disagreements through talks before going to court. The judge pointed out that skipping this step should only happen if there's a really good reason.
The court dismissed the case because the people bringing it didn't follow the necessary steps to try to solve the problem before going to court. They can try again after following the rules, but this decision shows how important it is to try all other ways to fix a problem before going to court.
