Chhattisgarh High Court: Section 80 CPC notice not needed if State is only a formal party

The Chhattisgarh High Court at Bilaspur has held that a plaintiff need not serve the mandatory notice under Section 80 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC) on the State Government where no substantive relief is sought against it. In M/s Om Builders and Developers v. Smt. Sangeeta Agrawal and Others, a trial court had returned a plaint for a suit over title, injunction and arrears of rent because the plaintiff, who had impleaded the State of Chhattisgarh only as a formal party under the State amendment to Order I Rule 3A CPC, had not issued a Section 80 notice. Justice Ravindra Kumar Agrawal set aside that order, holding that Section 80 is attracted only when relief is claimed personally against the Government or a public officer for an official act, relying on the Supreme Court's reasoning in State of Madras v. C.P. Agencies and on decisions of the Bombay and Telangana High Courts.

Since the plaintiff had expressly pleaded that no relief was sought from the State, which was impleaded only to satisfy the requirement of making it a formal party, the mandatory-notice bar did not apply. The Court directed the trial court to take the plaint on record, register the suit and proceed in accordance with law. The ruling binds trial courts in Chhattisgarh; it is a High Court ruling, not a Supreme Court precedent.