 bill no 152 of 2018 the code of civil procedure (amendment) bill, 2018 by shri bhartruhari mahtab, mp a billfurther to amend the code of civil procedure, 1908be it enacted by parliament in the sixty-ninth year of the republic of india as follows:—1 (1) this act may be called the code of civil procedure (amendment) act, 2018short title and commencement(2) it shall come into force on such date as the central government may, by notificationin the official gazette, appoint5 of 190852 in the code of civil procedure, 1908 (hereinafter referred to as the code), forsection 35a, the following section shall be substituted, namely:—substitution of new section for section 35a"35a (1) if any suit or other proceedings, including an execution proceedings but excluding an appeal or a revision, any party objects to the claim or defence on the ground that the claim or defence or any part of it is, as against the objector, false orcosts in respect of false or vexatious or defences5vexatious to the knowledge of the party by whom it has been put forward, and if thereafter, as against the objector, such claim or defence is disallowed, abandoned or withdrawn in whole or in part, the court, if it so thinks fit, may, after recording its reasons for holding such claim or defence to be false or vexatious, make an order for the payment to the objector by the party by whom such claim or defence has been put forward, of such compensatory, punitive and prohibitive costs as appear to the court to be in the interest of justice10(2) in determining the amount of costs under sub-section (1), the court shall give due regard to the inconvenience faced by the objector against whom false or vaxatious claims were made, the costs of litigation, the loss of reputation of the objector due to such claims and the loss of judicial time:provided that no court shall make any such order for the payment of an amount exceeding the limits of its pecuniary jurisdiction15(3) no person against whom an order has been made under this section shall, by reason thereof, be exempted from any criminal liability in respect of any claim or defence made by him(4) the amount of any compensation awarded under this section in respect of a false or vexatious claim or defence shall be taken into account in any subsequent suit for damages or compensation in respect of such claim or defence" 3 for section 35b of the code, the following section shall be substituted, namely:—20substitution of new section for section 35bcosts for causing delay"35b (1) if, on any date fixed for the hearing of a suit or for taking any step therein, a party to the suit—(a) fails to take the step which he was required by or under this code to take on that date, or25(b) obtains an adjournment for taking such step or for producing evidence or on any other ground,30the court shall make an order imposing such compensatory, punitive and prohibitive costs as appear to the court to be in the interest of justice and payment of such costs, on the date next hearing following the date of such order, shall be a condition precedent to the further prosecution of—(a) the suit by the plaintiff, where the plaintiff was ordered to pay such costs;(b) the defence by the defendant, where the defendant was ordered to pay such costs35explanation—where separate defences have been raised by the defendants or groups of defendants, payment of such costs shall be a condition precedent to the further prosecution of the defence by such defendants or groups of defendants as have been ordered by the court to pay such costs40(2) in determining the amount of costs under sub-section (1), the court shall give due regard to the inconvenience faced by the other party due to delays caused by the delinquent party, the costs of litigation and the loss of judicial time:provided that no court shall make any such order for the payment of an amount exceeding the limits of its pecuniary jurisdiction45(3) the court may, for reasons to be recorded, exempt invocation of sub-section (1) if it so deems fit" statement  of  objects  and  reasonsdelays in judicial processes are order of the day according to an estimate, judicial delays costs our nation around 05 per cent of gross domestic product (gdp) in terms of lost man-hours, litigation costs, disruption in productive activities a major cause of prolonged judicial proceedings is the tendency among parties to litigation to seek adjournments on one excuse after the other moreover, many a time parties make false or frivolous claims in judicial proceedings and employ it as a dilatory tactic to delay timely conclusion of the proceedingsthough there are provisions in the code of civil procedure, 1908 under section 35aand section 35b, these provisions have largely proved to be inadequate to address the malaise of prolonged judicial proceedings due to various reasonsfirstly, section 35b of the code makes it discretionary for the courts to impose costs for causing delays as a result, litigants often try to delay judicial proceedings and get away without any penalty acknowledging the importance of invoking section 35b of the code of civil procedure, the supreme court observed in vinod seth's case that section 35b providing for costs for causing delay should be regularly employed to reduce delay the supreme court has, in many recent cases, imposed costs as high as twenty-five lakh rupees for wasting judicial timesecondly, section 35a provides for only compensatory costs in respect of false or vexatious claims or defences and disregards the need to impose punitive costs on delinquent parties so as to prohibit them from making false or vexatious claims or defencesthirdly, the said section 35a lays down an upper limit of a mere three thousand rupees for compensatory cost and that too is seldom invoked though the supreme court and the high courts have plenary powers under their writ jurisdiction to award higher costs, the exercise of power to impose cost by the lower courts is largely fettered by the monetary ceiling laid down under section 35ait is, therefore, high time that section 35a and 35b are amended to make them more effective in addressing delays in courtswith the above objects in view, the bill seeks to amend the code of civil procedure, 1908 with a view to—(a) provide that it shall be mandatory for courts to impose costs for causing delays, and in only exceptional cases, for reasons to be recorded, the courts may do away with such imposition of such costs;(b) provide for imposition of punitive costs in addition to compensatory costs in cases of false or vexatious claims or defences;(c) do away with the maximum ceiling of three thousand rupees on costs imposable under section 35a of the code; and(d) provide that the court shall give due regard to factors such as the inconvenience faced by the aggrieved party, costs of litigation and loss of judicial time while imposing cost on delinquent parties so that the costs imposed are prohibitive the bill seeks to achieve the above objectsnew delhi;bhartruhari  mahtabjuly 10, 2018 annexure (extracts from the code of civil procedure, 1908) (no 5 of 1908)|             ||--------------|| compensatory || costs in     || respect of   || false or     || vexatious    || claims or    || defenses    |35a (1) if any suit or other proceedings including an execution proceedings but excluding an appeal or a revision, any party objects to the claim of defense on the ground that the claim or defense or any part of it is, as against the objector, false or vexatious to the knowledge of the party by whom it has been put forward, and if thereafter, as against the objector, such claim or defence is disallowed, abandoned or withdrawn in whole or in part, the court if it so thinks fit, may, after recording its reasons for holding such claim or defence to be false or vexatious, make an order for the payment to the object or by the party by whom such claim or defence has been put forward, of cost by way of compensation(2) no court shall make any such order for the payment of an amount exceeding three thousand rupees or exceeding the limits of it pecuniary jurisdiction, whichever amount is less:provided that where the pecuniary limits of the jurisdiction of any court exercising the jurisdiction of a court of small causes under the provincial small cause courts act, 1887 (9 of 1887) or under a corresponding law in force in any part of india to which the said act does not extend and not being a court constituted under such act or law, are less than two hundred and fifty rupees, the high court may empower such court to award as costs under this section any amount not exceeding two hundred and fifty rupees and not exceeding those limits by more than one hundred rupees:provided further that the high court may limit the amount or class of courts is empowered to award as costs under this section(3) no person against whom an order has been made under this section shall, by reason thereof, by exempted from any criminal liability in respect of any claim or defence made by him(4) the amount of any compensation awarded under this section in respect of a false or vexatious claim or defence shall be taken into account in any subsequent suit for damages or compensation in respect of such claim or defencecost for causing delay35b (1) if, on any date fixed for the hearing of a suit or for taking any step therein, a party to the suit—(a) fails to take the step which he was required by or under this code to take on that date, or(b) obtains an adjournment for taking such step or for producing evidence or on any other ground, the court may, for reasons to be recorded, make an order requiring such party to pay to the other party such costs as would, in the opinion of the court, be reasonably sufficient to reimburse the other party in respect of the expenses incurred by him in attending the court on that date, and payment of such costs, on the date next following the date of such order, shall be a condition precedent to the further prosecution of—(a) the suit by plaintiff, where the plaintiff was ordered to pay such costs (b) the defence by the defendant, where the defendant was ordered to pay such costsexplanation—where separate defences have been raised by the defendants or groups of defendants, payment of such costs shall be a condition precedent to the further prosecution of the defence by such defendants or groups of defendants as have been ordered by the court to pay such costs(2) the costs, ordered to be paid under sub-section (1) shall not, if paid, be included in the costs awarded in the decree passed in the suit; but if such costs are not paid, a separate order shall be drawn up indicating the amount of such costs and the names and addresses of the persons by whom such costs are payable and the order so drawn up shall be executable against such persons       lok  sabha———— a billfurther to amend the code of civil procedure, 1908————(shri bhartruhari mahtab, mp)mgipmrnd—1780ls(s3)—01102018