Principle of ‘Delay defeats equity’ must be applied bearing in mind hard realities: Calcutta High Court

The Calcutta High Court recently observed that courts must consider practical "hard realities" before they decline to grant equitable relief citing delay in approaching the Court..As stated in the order passed by a Division Bench comprising of Justices Abhijit Gangopadhyay and Harish Tandon,."The legal principle ‘delay defeats equity’ is not abstruse nor to be perceived theoretically, but must be applied with the hard realities of today’s world and above all objectively. It is not a stray subjective consideration, but has an in-built objective values, which should always be borne in mind when a right or relief is denied on such equitable principle."Calcutta High Court.The trial court, in this case, had declined to grant an ex-parte interim injunction citing the "considerable delay" on the litigant's part in approaching the court, about a month after the cause of action had arisen..The relevant portion of the impugned order read, "The injunction is an equitable relief and there is well known maxim “delay defeats equity”. So considering the same, I am not inclined to pass any order of ad-interim injunction at this stage.”.Disagreeing with the trial court's stance, the High Court highlighted that the trial court had erred in presuming that the litigant had shown a dormant attitude in approaching the Court. In doing so, the Court pointed out that it is improbable that a lawyer would not take at least fifteen to twenty days to take a decision and institute the suit before the Court of law.The Bench further pointed out that even Judges take time in render judgments. While rationalizing the delay caused in filing the suit, the Court also remarked that,.“The human intelligence cannot be equated with the artificial intelligence; in judicial system when an approach is made to a legal expert, he has to collate the documents and also make his own assessment on the probability of success obviously upon the application of law relating thereto. Such assessment takes time and cannot be expected to be used on a click of the button, as the artificial intelligence does.”.This being the case, the Court held that the challenged trial court order was testament to fact that the learned Judge had "shirked his responsibility in recording the reasons on merit and had invented a circuitous path in refusing the prayer for ex-parte ad interim order of injunction." .While the High Court was inclined to interfere with the trial court order, the judges observed that the application for interim injunction has now been contested by the opposite parties. .This being the case, the Court proceeded to take critical note of the far off date fixed for the next hearing in the matter i.e. August 2020. The Bench observed that such a delay in hearing the matter would frustrate the object of filing the injunction application. The Bench observed,."If the longer date is fixed for disposal of an application for injunction, it frustrate the main object of it and it is high time that the Judges should realize that the purpose of incorporating the provisions for temporary injunction is not only to protect and preserve the status of the property, but also to protect the rights pending final adjudication in the suit.".The trial court was, therefore, directed to prepone the date of hearing, if approached by either of the parties. Further the lower court was also directed to make efforts to dispose of the same as expeditiously as possible without granting unnecessary adjournments..[Read the Order here]