Smt. Dulali Bala Sharma vs Sri Santosh Chowdhury

Prasenjit Mandal, J.—This application is at the instance of the plaintiff and is directed against the order dated 16.09.2008 passed by the learned Judge (Junior Division), First Court at Sealdah in Title Suit No. 496 of 1986 whereby the learned Civil Judge rejected the petition dated 29.08.2008 under Order 6 Rule 17 read with Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

The plaintiff/petitioner filed the suit for eviction on the ground of default, reasonable requirement, sub-letting, etc. in 1986 and the suit is at the stage of peremptory hearing. After close of the evidence of the P.W.1 on behalf of the plaintiff, he sought for amendment of the plaint seeking certain facts which relate to the matter to be decided for consideration of eviction on the ground of reasonable requirement. That application was rejected by the order impugned. So the plaintiff filed this application.

Having considered the submission of the learned Advocate for the plaintiff/petitioner and on perusal of the materials available on record, I find that the proposed amendment is very much related to the ground of reasonable requirement for eviction. Though the suit was old and there was a direction by the Hon''ble Court to dispose of the suit at early, the proposed amendment sought for was made for settlement of the dispute once for all and some changes which occurred by lapse of time too, require for the purpose of determination the ground of reasonable requirement.

The learned Advocate for the plaintiff/petitioner referred to the decision reported in 2008(2) CLJ Cal 815 and S.P. Sehgal Vs. Vidya Kaul, to the effect that proposed amendment should be allowed to determine the real question in controversy between the parties and that amendment should not cause injustice to the other side. At the same time, the proposed amendment would not be barred by law.

In that view of the matter, I hold that instead of rejection of the application for amendment of the plaint the learned Civil Judge should have allowed the application. The order impugned is, therefore, not sustainable at all. It is therefore set aside. The application for amendment of the plaint stands allowed. The learned Civil Judge shall allow the opposite party to file additional written statement, if any, in view of such amendment of the plaint and then he shall dispose of the suit in accordance with law.

With the above observations, the present application is allowed.

Considering the circumstances, there will be no order as to costs.

Urgent xerox certified copy of this order, if applied for, be supplied to the learned Advocates for the parties on their usual undertaking.