Renewflex Recycling vs. Facilitation Centre Rohini Courts & Ors.

Facts

The petitioner, Renewflex Recycling, filed a writ petition challenging remarks made by Respondent No. 1 (Facilitation Centre Rohini Courts) on January 14, 2025, which rejected its plaint. The petitioner had supplied goods to Respondent No. 2 (DP Polymers) for which an outstanding amount of Rs. 5,57,550/-, including GST, remained unpaid. After sending a legal notice and a mediation request on December 24, 2024, to Respondent No. 2, which went unanswered, the petitioner filed a commercial suit. Respondent No. 1 rejected the plaint, stating that the procedural requirements under Section 12A of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015, were not satisfied due to the absence of a Non-Starter Report or Certificate of Non-Settlement from the mediation authority. The petitioner had previously filed a similar writ petition which was withdrawn with liberty to file a fresh one.

Held

The Court held that the petitioner's submissions were unmerited and based on a misconception of Section 12A of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015. The Court found no statutory foundation for deeming a response to a legal notice for mediation as compliance with Section 12A. It emphasized that if a statute prescribes a particular mode or manner for implementing its provisions, it must be followed accordingly, citing Taylor v. Taylor and Nazir Ahmed. The Court extracted Section 12A and stated that its plain reading indicates the intent to initiate mediation within a statutory framework, not to allow litigants to supplant or supplement the process through informal means like legal notices. The Court noted that the statutory framework, including the sanctity given to settlements as arbitral awards, cannot be bypassed. Therefore, the rejection of the plaint for non-compliance with the prescribed pre-institution mediation procedure was upheld. The petition was dismissed in limine.

Key Issues

1. Whether a lawyer's legal notice calling upon the other party to participate in self-styled 'mediation', and the failure of the 'noticee' to respond, can be deemed to satisfy the procedural requirements under Section 12A of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015, thereby entailing a 'Non-Starter Report' and dispensing with the need for court-directed mediation? Petitioner's Arguments: The petitioner argued that its bona fide attempts to resolve the matter through a legal notice and a mediation request, which were met with non-response from Respondent No. 2, were in consonance with the legislative intent of Section 12A. It contended that the rigid insistence on a Non-Starter Report from a formal mediation authority imposed an undue procedural burden, contravened access to justice principles, and that the non-response effectively made the mediation process a 'non-starter', thus satisfying the statutory requirement. Revenue/State's Arguments: The respondents did not file a formal reply, but the Court's reasoning indicates an implicit argument that the statutory procedure under Section 12A must be strictly followed and cannot be supplanted by informal pre-litigation steps.