Delhi District Court
Meenu Verma vs Anil Kumar Garg on 14 March, 2016
Suit No. 857/13
IN THE COURT OF MS. SHEFALI SHARMA
CIVIL JUDGE (NORTH): ROHINI COURTS: DELHI
Suit No.857/13
Meenu Verma
........Plaintiff
Versus
Anil Kumar Garg
....Defendant
Order:
Vide this order I shall dispose off an application under order 6
rule 17 CPC filed by the plaintiff. The brief facts for the effectual disposal
of the instant application are as follows:
1.It is submitted on behalf of defendant that owing to typographical error in reply on merits of Para2, which has been simply mentioned as "a matter of record.", it is submitted that defendant is a tenant of the suit property since year 2007 when the plaintiff's husband was alive and both the husband and plaintiff used to make fresh rent agreement every two years for the purposes of house tax and income tax and accordingly the tenancy continued every year. The defendant seeks to make necessary changes in para 2 of the WS.
Likewise in para 3, the defendant seeks to incorporate that he Meenu Verma Vs.Anil Kumar Garg. 1/5 Suit No. 857/13 was a tenant and therefore termination of tenancy is out of question. That the defendant is suffering from brain ailments for the past four years and has not been able to work and has never operated or was involved in share trading. Further, in para 5 of the WS the defendants seeks to incorporate the fact that the husband of the plaintiff had retained some money which was furnished by defendant and defendant never demanded any interest on the said amount. He reposed trust in the husband of the plaintiff but now unfortunately husband has expired and the defendant seeks to make necessary changes in the contents of the said para in the WS. It is submitted that owing to inadvertent typographical error, the said facts could not be incorporated earlier.
2. In response to the same, it is submitted that the application is being filed at a very belated stage. The defendant deliberately and intentionally wants to change the nature of the WS with false and concocted story and fill up lacunaes, hence the present application is liable to be dismissed. Rest of the contentions of the application are stronlgy denied.
3. I have heard both the ld counsels for the parties.
4. At this stage, it is pertinent to quote the provisions of order 6 rule 17 CPC. Amendment of Pleadings.__ The Court may at any stage of Meenu Verma Vs.Anil Kumar Garg. 2/5 Suit No. 857/13 the proceedings allow either party to alter or amend his pleadings in such manner and on such terms as may be just, and all such amendments shall be made as may be necessary for the purpose of determining the real questions in controversy between the parties:
Provided that no application for amendment shall be allowed after the trial has commenced, unless the Court comes to the conclusion that in spite of due diligence, the party could not have raised the matter before the commencement of trial.
It has been held in the case of Tilak Raj v. Rattan Chand, 1999 AIHC 1071 (P & H); Pavithran v. Narayanan Gangadhara Karthvu, 1997 AIHC 3594, 3596 (Ker) Court should be liberal in allowing applications for amendment of the pleadings.
Especially pretrial amendments having regard to the fact that thereby multifariousness of the proceedings would be avoided.
It has been held in the case of Palaniammal v. V.K. Ramanathan, 2002 (1) CTC 618 Amendment should be allowed and technicalities of law would not be permitted to hamper administration of justice.
It has been held in the case of Shri SaifulIslam Co. L.P. v Roshan Lar Arora, 2003 AIHC 2966 (2968) (Del) merely delay or laches are no ground for rejecting amendment.
Meenu Verma Vs.Anil Kumar Garg. 3/5 Suit No. 857/13 It has been held in the case of Shri SaifulIslam Co. L.P. v Roshan Lar Arora, 2003 AIHC 2966 (2968) (Del) where pleadings are defective, amendment would be allowed.
Thus to sum up the legal position the power to allow amendment is wide and hence the Court should not adopt hyper technical approach but on the other hand liberal approach should be the general rule particularly in cases where the other side can be compensated with costs. Technicalities of law should not be permitted to hamper the administration of justice between the parties and amendments are allowed in the pleadings to avoid multiplicity of litigation. Even if a party or its counsel is inefficient in setting out its case initially the shortcoming can certainly be removed but however, the party who is put to inconvenience should be suitably paid. The Court has to only see the error is not incapable of being rectified so long as remedial steps do not unjustifiable injure rights accrued.
5. In the present case, in support of his contentions the defendant has placed on record copies of some of rent agreement prior to 2012 including police verification report dated 10.10.2007. The defendant has also placed on record various document i.e. copy of rent agreement dated 11.11.2008 executed between Sh. Navdeep Verma, defendant along with copy of the tenant verification form and another rent agreement dated 03.10.2011, copy of the election commission I card of the defendant and his Meenu Verma Vs.Anil Kumar Garg. 4/5 Suit No. 857/13 wife bear the same address of the year 2008, ID card of daughter and son of the defendant of the year 201011 as well as 200809, gas service receipt of the year 2008, 2006 etc. which shows that defendant and his family are residing in the suit premises prior to 2012.
Thus from the said documents which were also dealt with while disposing off the application under order 12 rule 6 CPC it prima facie appears that the facts which the defendant alleges to incorporate are not concocted and commencement and termination of the tenancy thus become a matter of trial and miscarriage of justice could be caused if the defendant is not granted a liberty to prove the said documents.
6. In these circumstances and in view of the aforesaid observations and the case law cited above, the instant application under order 6 rule 17 is allowed. Amendment WS already filed earlier taken on record. Plaintiff is at liberty to file the replication to the amended WS if any by the next date of hearing.
Put up for filing of the amended pleadings and admission denial of documents and framing of issues on 18.04.2016. Pronounced in the open court today on 14.03.2016 (SHEFALI SHARMA) CIVIL JUDGE (NORTH) ROHINI, DELHI/ 14.03.2016 Meenu Verma Vs.Anil Kumar Garg. 5/5