Madhya Pradesh HC: place of receiving a termination email can found territorial jurisdiction

In a civil revision arising out of a damages suit by a former Consulting Editor of Times Network against Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd and its officials, the Madhya Pradesh High Court (Jabalpur) upheld a trial court's refusal to reject the plaint for want of territorial jurisdiction. The defendants argued that the company's office was at Mumbai, the proposed workplace was Noida, the plaintiff's residence was shown as Noida, and mere receipt of an email at Jabalpur could not confer jurisdiction, relying on State of Rajasthan v. Swaika Properties and ONGC v. Utpal Kumar Basu. Justice Deepak Khot held that those judgments do not lay down an absolute rule that the place where an email is received is irrelevant to the cause of action; the question depends on the facts pleaded.

Here, the plaintiff's entire engagement, acceptance of terms, and eventual termination were conducted over email, and he was in Jabalpur when the termination notice was received and his company email account deactivated. At the stage of an application under Order VII Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, the Court must examine the plaint's averments as pleaded, assuming them to be correct, under Saleem Bhai v. State of Maharashtra and Dahiben v. Arvindbhai Kalyanji Bhanusali. Since the plaint prima facie disclosed that a part of the cause of action, within the meaning of Section 20(c) of the Code, arose at Jabalpur, the revision against the trial court's order was dismissed.