Delhi HC Refers to Larger Bench Whether Mediation Period Must Be Excluded from Written Statement Deadline Under Original Side Rules

Justice Subramonium Prasad finds conflicting Delhi HC rulings on whether time spent in mediation counts against the 120-day cap for filing a written statement, and refers the question to the Chief Justice for constitution of a two or three-judge bench.

A single-judge bench of the High Court of Delhi, Justice Subramonium Prasad sitting on the original side, has referred a contested question of civil procedure to the Chief Justice for constitution of a larger bench of two or three judges. The question is whether the time a party spends in court-referred mediation must be excluded when computing the mandatory 120-day period for filing a written statement under Chapter VII of the Delhi High Court (Original Side) Rules, 2018. The referral arises from a chamber appeal filed by the defendants in Narender Gupta & Anr. v. CA Vaibhav Jalan & Ors. (CS(OS) 459/2023) against a Joint Registrar's order that refused to treat the mediation period as excludable. Justice Prasad found that co-ordinate benches and division benches of the Court have taken irreconcilable positions on the point, making an authoritative ruling necessary.

The Dispute Before the Court

Summons in the underlying civil suit were issued on 8 December 2023. The defendants were served the same day, though their counsel raised a grievance before the Joint Registrar on 1 February 2024 that the complete paper-book with all supporting documents had not been supplied to them.

At the same hearing on 1 February 2024, both sides indicated willingness to explore an amicable settlement. The Joint Registrar directed the parties to appear before the Delhi High Court Mediation Centre on 5 February 2024. The full paper-book was ultimately supplied to the defendants on 16 February 2024, by which point mediation proceedings had already begun. Those talks failed, and a Mediation Report dated 27 May 2024 recorded the failure.

On 3 September 2024, the Joint Registrar closed the defendants' right to file a written statement, holding that the time had elapsed under Chapter VII of the Rules. The defendants challenged that closure in the present chamber appeal under Chapter II Rule 5 of the Rules, arguing that the mediation period should not have been counted against them.

The immediate factual controversy was narrow: should the outer time limit be reckoned from 16 February 2024 (when the paper-book was supplied) or from 27 May 2024 (when mediation failed)?

The Mandatory Time Limits Under Chapter VII

Rule 2(i) of Chapter VII of the Delhi High Court (Original Side) Rules, 2018 requires a defendant to file a written statement within 30 days of receiving the summons along with an affidavit of admission or denial of documents.

Rule 4 of Chapter VII allows the court to condone delay and permit filing of the written statement within a further 90 days beyond that initial 30-day period, provided the defendant demonstrates sufficient cause based on exceptional and unavoidable reasons. Once both periods are exhausted — that is, after the outer limit of 120 days in total — the written statement simply cannot be taken on record. A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court in Ram Sarup Lugani v. Nirmal Lugani, (2020) SCC OnLine Del 1353, held that this time limit is mandatory and the court has no power to condone delay beyond it.

The Conflict in Judicial Opinions

Justice Prasad surveyed the case law and identified a direct and unresolved conflict between multiple benches of the Court.

The line holding mediation time is not excludable. A co-ordinate bench in Harjyot Singh v. Manpreet Kaur, (2021) SCC OnLine Del 2629, reasoned that while a party's participation in mediation could be a “sufficient cause for exceptional and unavoidable reason” justifying condonation within the 90-day window, it could not suspend or exclude the running of the clock altogether. The court held that since Rule 4 of the Delhi High Court (Original Side) Rules is mandatory and the 120-day outer limit cannot be crossed for any reason, time spent in mediation offered no further relief once that outer limit was reached.

A Division Bench in Amit Tara and Others v. Deepak Tara and Others, (2024) SCC OnLine Del 7900, affirmed this position in explicit terms: “the time period mandated under Rule 4 of the Rules cannot be extended beyond 120 days on any ground, including on the ground that mediation/settlement talks were ongoing.”

The contrary line holding mediation time should be excluded. A co-ordinate bench in Bharat Singh v. Karan Singh and Others, (2025) SCC OnLine Del 691, reached the opposite conclusion without adverting to the Amit Tara Division Bench ruling. That bench drew on Section 89 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which mandates courts to explore settlement options including mediation, and on the Supreme Court's observations in Vikram Bakshi v. Sonia Khosla, (2014) 15 SCC 80, emphasising mediation as a form of access to justice. The Bharat Singh bench expressed that compelling parties to simultaneously file adversarial pleadings while engaged in mediation would “hamper the entire mediation process.” It relied on an earlier co-ordinate bench ruling in Telefonaktiebolaget L.M. Ericsson v. Lava International Limited, 2015 SCC OnLine Del 13903, which had excluded 59 days spent in settlement talks from the prescribed period.

The Bharat Singh approach was then affirmed by a Division Bench in Sangeeta Rai Sandhu and Others v. Charanjit Sandhu and Others, (2025) SCC OnLine Del 5541. That bench went further and applied a bifurcation method: it separately computed the pre-mediation period (from service of summons to referral to mediation) and the post-mediation period (from the mediation report to the closure of the right to file), added both, and checked whether that combined figure remained within 120 days. Applying this approach on the facts before it, the Division Bench found the combined period was within the limit and restored the defendants' right to file.

How Justice Prasad Reasoned the Need for Reference

Justice Prasad framed the core tension as one between two legitimate legal imperatives. On one side sits the mandatory character of Chapter VII's time limits, which the Ram Sarup Lugani Division Bench held cannot be relaxed by any court, at any stage, for any reason. On the other side sits the statutory direction in Section 89 of the CPC for courts to endeavour settlement, and the national policy push — described in the judgment as India's movement towards a “Vivad Mukt Bharat” — that gives mediation a central place in dispute resolution.

The court observed that forcing a defendant to file a written statement while simultaneously participating in mediation pushes the party back into adversarial mode, which runs counter to the spirit of mediation. At the same time, a blanket exclusion of the mediation period would effectively allow the 120-day mandatory ceiling to be circumvented whenever parties could point to pending mediation.

Justice Prasad noted that this conflict was not merely academic. Learned Joint Registrars dealing with applications for condonation of delay at the pre-trial stage face this question regularly, and the absence of a binding authoritative ruling means different registrars may decide similar situations differently. That practical consequence reinforced the need for an early reference rather than yet another single-judge or division-bench ruling that would simply add to the pile of conflicting decisions.

The court also acknowledged that in the present case the defendants had a factual grievance: the paper-book was not supplied to them until 16 February 2024, and mediation proceedings were already underway by then. The resolution of the legal question would directly determine whether their written statement could still be taken on record.

The Referred Question

Justice Prasad formulated the following question to be answered by the larger bench:

“Whether the time spent in mediation ought to be excluded while computing the limitation period prescribed for filing the written statement/replication as prescribed under Chapter VII of the Delhi High Court (Original Side) Rules, 2018?”

Order

By the judgment dated 1 July 2026, Justice Subramonium Prasad directed that O.A. 179/2024 in CS(OS) 459/2023 be placed along with O.A. 122/2026 in CS(OS) 322/2023 before the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court. The Chief Justice will constitute an appropriate bench of two or three judges to answer the referred question. No final relief was granted in the chamber appeal pending that determination.