In Brief
In a pre-emption case, the trial court decreed a suit and required the decree holder (appellants' predecessor) to deposit ₹9,214 minus one-fifth (already paid) by October 1988. An application with a treasury challan was filed seeking to deposit ₹7,600, which the court approved. The amount was deposited but was found short by ₹14. When the decree holder later sought permission to deposit this deficit, the trial court and high court rejected the plea on grounds that the time had expired. The Supreme Court allowed the appeal, holding that under Section 148 CPC, courts retain discretion to extend deposit time for small deficiencies caused by bona fide calculation errors, especially when the error was not caught by the court when reviewing the original application.
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