Ex parte decree and non-service of summons: belated challenge failed where last known address service and awareness were shown.

Summons sent to a defendant's correct last known address can be treated as duly served where the record and correspondence show awareness of the dispute, and a vague plea of non-service is unsupported by particulars. A belated challenge to an ex parte decree, filed about ten years later without any application to condone delay, does not establish sufficient cause to reopen the decree. On these facts, the court declined to disturb the ex parte decree and rejected the application to set it aside.

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Issues: Whether the ex parte decree should be set aside on the ground of alleged non-service of summons and whether the application filed nearly a decade later was maintainable.

Analysis: The record showed that the plaintiff had taken steps to serve summons at the defendant's last known address, and the correspondence exchanged between the parties established that the defendant was aware of the dispute and the demand for payment. The defendant did not establish that summons had been sent to an incorrect address or that the change of business address had been intimated to the plaintiff. The Court also noted that the application to set aside the ex parte decree was filed after an inordinate delay of about ten years, without an accompanying application to condone delay, and that the plea of lack of knowledge was not supported by specific particulars. In these circumstances, the service of summons could be treated as duly effected and no sufficient cause was made out to unsettle the decree.

Conclusion: The application to set aside the ex parte decree was rightly rejected, and the ex parte decree was not liable to be disturbed.

Final Conclusion: The appeal failed because the challenge to the ex parte decree was barred by delay and the allegation of non-service was not made out on the facts.

Ratio Decidendi: Where summons are sent to a defendant's correct last known address and the defendant fails to show a legally sustainable ground of non-service or sufficient cause for a belated challenge, an ex parte decree will not be set aside merely on a vague plea of later knowledge.

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