In The Aryan Educational Society v. Aaryan International School (CS(COMM) 46/2024, decided 3 November 2026), Justice Jyoti Singh of the High Court of Delhi dismissed a defendant’s applications under Order IX Rule 13 CPC and Section 5 of the Limitation Act to set aside an ex parte decree — a permanent injunction with Rs 5,00,000 in damages and costs in a trademark dispute between two similarly named schools. The defendant blamed an advocate it said it had engaged, who had “assured” it the matter was being handled. The court’s answer: there was no vakalatnama, no engagement letter, no fee receipt and no correspondence — the plea failed at the threshold.
The case in one view
| Case | The Aryan Educational Society v. Aaryan International School, CS(COMM) 46/2024 |
|---|---|
| Court | High Court of Delhi, Jyoti Singh J |
| Decided | 3 November 2026 |
| Provisions | Order IX Rule 13 r/w Section 151 CPC; Section 5, Limitation Act |
| Outcome | Both applications dismissed; ex parte decree of 25 October 2024 stands |
The background
The plaintiff society runs “The Aryan School” in Dehradun with registered marks in Class 41; it sued the defendant, which runs “Aaryan International School”, and obtained an ex parte decree in October 2024 — a permanent injunction with Rs 5,00,000 in damages and costs. The defendant had been served by speed post and was set ex parte in September 2024.
The defendant claimed it learnt of the decree only in February 2025, when a Local Commissioner arrived, and moved to set the decree aside 196 days out of time. Its explanation: it had engaged an advocate back in March 2024, who “assured” it the matter was being handled.
Proving the engagement is the threshold
The court’s analysis is unusually clean because the defendant’s file was unusually empty. Service was admitted. The entire sufficient-cause case was the advocate story — and there was nothing behind it:
From the judgment: “there is no document to establish that the counsel was, in fact, engaged, instructed or duly authorised” — no vakalatnama, no engagement letter, no fee receipt, no correspondence.
On the authorities — Rajneesh Kumar, Moddus Media, A. Murugesan — a litigant must remain vigilant about its own case; counsel’s negligence can excuse a default only where the engagement and the litigant’s diligence are shown. Orders in the suit had been available online for over seven months. As the court put it, the “Defendant cannot claim that it was unaware of case status and/or non-appearance of the counsel”. The 196-day delay fell with the same reasoning, and an arrest in the family of the defendant’s chairperson, pressed as an explanation, post-dated the decree.
What the decision means in practice
The wider frame
Order IX Rule 13 jurisprudence balances two goods: the finality of decrees and the policy of deciding cases on merits. The balance has been shifting, in commercial litigation especially, towards finality — driven by the Commercial Courts Act’s timelines and by the courts’ impatience with reconstructed explanations. This judgment is a sharp example: the court did not disbelieve that lawyers sometimes fail clients; it held that the claim must be proved like any other fact, and that a defendant’s own two-year silence, against an online docket, speaks louder than an unsupported assurance it attributes to an unnamed file. For schools and businesses trading under similar names, it is also a reminder that trademark suits ignored do not go away — they become decrees.
Frequently Asked Questions
When can an ex parte decree be set aside under Order IX Rule 13?
The defendant must show that summons was not duly served, or that it was prevented by sufficient cause from appearing. Here service by speed post was admitted, so everything turned on sufficient cause — and a bare assertion of counsel's negligence, unsupported by any proof of engagement, was held not to constitute it.
Is counsel's negligence ever a good ground?
It can be, where genuine: courts have relieved litigants of their lawyer's defaults. But the authorities the court applied — including Rajneesh Kumar and Moddus Media — require the litigant to prove the engagement and to show its own vigilance. A litigant cannot outsource the case entirely and claim ignorance for years while orders remain available online.
What was the delay, and why was it not condoned?
The application came 196 days late. The condonation plea rested on the same unproven advocate story, and the court noted the decree and orders had been accessible online for over seven months, while the event said to explain the inaction post-dated the decree. The delay application failed with the main one.
What does the decision mean for the underlying trademark fight?
The ex parte decree of 25 October 2024 — restraining the defendant and awarding Rs 5,00,000 — stands. A defendant that allows a commercial suit to proceed ex parte fights thereafter from a position of accomplished fact, with execution and contempt exposure, rather than from the merits.