Court Must Not Look Into Merits Of Case While Deciding Application For Amendment Of Plaint: Calcutta HC
The Calcutta High Court has observed that while deciding an application for amendment of plaint, the trial court at a very nascent stage must not look into the merits of a case.
The Bench of Justice Shampa Sarkar observed, “The merits of the amendment was not to be looked into by the learned court. Whether the contentions of the plaintiffs were correct or not would be a matter of evidence. At the very nascent stage, the petitioners prayed for correction of the schedule in the application for injunction as also in the plaint. In my opinion, such correction was formal in nature and did not change the nature and character of the suit. It also did not take away any vested right which may have accrued in favour of the defendants.”
Advocate Sohini Chakraborty appeared for the Petitioners whereas Advocate Rwitendra Banerjee appeared for the Respondents.
The Petitioners assailed the order passed by a civil judge rejecting an application for amendment of plaint under Order VI Rule 17 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.
The Petitioners submitted that they lost their possession in respect of the property in question during the pendency of the suit, which was required to be incorporated for proper adjudication of the dispute between the parties and the prayer for recovery of possession should also be allowed.
It was submitted that the trial court could not have gone into the merits of the amendment.
The Court also held that the amendment of the plaint should be allowed liberally, except when the amendment sought to be incorporated was ex facie barred by limitation or where the plaintiffs wanted to incorporate contrary pleas.
The Court said that the trial court while discussing the scope of an amendment application, had gone beyond the pleadings to decide whether such prayer and additional pleadings were available to the petitioners or not.
“At this stage, the Court was only required to see whether the amendment was necessary for proper adjudication of the dispute between the parties or whether the amendment should be allowed in order to prevent multiplicity of proceedings.”, the Court emphasized.
Accordingly, the Court disposed of the revision petitions.
Cause Title: Anup Kumar Sharma & Ors. v. Shanti Rani Roy & Ors.
Appearances:
Petitioners: Advocates Sohini Chakraborty and Arijit Sarkar.
Respondents: Advocates Rwitendra Banerjee, Soma Chakraborty and Nikhil Gupta.
