Due service by affixation on a company's registered office and false date of knowledge made the ex parte challenge time-barred.

Affixation of summons at a company's registered office after refusal by an employee was treated as due service, because the procedural rule on service on a corporation was read broadly to include an incorporated company and postal service remained permissive rather than mandatory. The challenge to service therefore failed. On limitation, the court accepted that the pleaded date of knowledge was untrue and held that, once that asserted date was disbelieved, there was no duty to independently fix the actual date of knowledge without a reliable factual basis from the petitioner. The application to set aside the ex parte decree was thus time-barred and could not be entertained.

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Issues: (i) Whether summons had been duly served on a company by affixation at its office under the Code of Civil Procedure; (ii) whether the application to set aside the ex parte decree was barred by limitation because the petitioner failed to prove the asserted date of knowledge.

Issue (i): Whether summons had been duly served on a company by affixation at its office under the Code of Civil Procedure.

Analysis: The application under Order IX, Rule 13 turned on whether service of summons was valid. The Court held that the term "corporation" in Order XXIX, Rule 2(b) was wide enough to include a company incorporated under the Indian Companies Act. Service at the registered office by affixation after refusal by an employee was therefore treated as sufficient service. The further resort to registered post did not negate the validity of service, since the provision enabling post service was permissive and not mandatory.

Conclusion: Service of summons on the company was duly effected, and the challenge to service failed.

Issue (ii): Whether the application to set aside the ex parte decree was barred by limitation because the petitioner failed to prove the asserted date of knowledge.

Analysis: The Court accepted the concurrent finding that the date of knowledge pleaded by the petitioner was untrue. It held that once the asserted date of knowledge was disbelieved, the Court was not obliged to determine the exact date of knowledge in the absence of a reliable foundation from the petitioner. On that basis, the application filed beyond thirty days from the decree was time-barred.

Conclusion: The application was barred by limitation and could not be entertained.

Final Conclusion: No ground for interference was made out, and the refusal to set aside the ex parte decree was sustained.

Ratio Decidendi: For service on an incorporated company, affixation at the registered office may amount to due service where the rules so permit, and a court need not independently determine the actual date of knowledge when the pleaded date of knowledge is found to be false and limitation is otherwise established.

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