HARCHARAN SINGH HAZOORIA Vs. KULWANT SINGH HAZOORIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Appellant/Plaintiff has filed a Suit for Partition, Declaration and Injunction in which an interim Order directing parties to maintain status quo has been passed. The Plaintiff is in possession of one bedroom on the Second Floor of the suit property, that is, 60, Ring Road, Lajpat Nagar-III, New Delhi. The suit property is extremely valuable as the construction is on a large plot of land admeasuring 790 square yards comprising Ground Floor, First Floor, Second Floor and Terrace thereon. Defendant Nos. 1 and 3, who are the brother and sister-in-law of the Plaintiff, are in possession thereof except for the one room occupied by the Appellant. The sister of the Appellant is supporting the Appellant. It is evident that the interim Order, while avowedly protecting the possession of the Plaintiff/Appellant so far as the said one room is concerned, does not cause prejudice to the Defendants/Respondents 1 and 3 who are in possession and enjoyment of the overwhelmingly predominant portion of the Bungalow.

(2.) The pleadings sought to be introduced by way of amendment application is reproduced for facility of reference:-

(3.) A plain reading of the Plaint leaves no manner of doubt that the Plaintiff's grievance is that his late mother, who died at the age of 98 years and who, at the relevant time, was over 90 years of age and therefore not capable of independent thinking, had been prevailed upon by Defendant Nos. 1 and 3 to sign Gift Deeds in favour of the latter. The late mother of the parties uncontrovertedly resided with Defendant Nos.1 and 3. There are already pleadings in the existing plaint indicative of the Plaintiff's view that Defendant Nos.1 and 3 were in a fiduciary relationship with the aged mother of two parties. In these circumstances, the amendments sought for in the application under Order VI Rule 17 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, which has been dismissed by the impugned Order, do not present a totally new case and should not have been disallowed. There is no gainsaying, and the Hon'ble Supreme Court has repeatedly observed, that amendment to pleadings should be freely and liberally allowed except where the endeavour is to withdraw an admission or to introduce a fresh case. Significant amount of argument has been generated on the endeavour of the Plaintiff to mention the fact that the late mother of the quarrelling brothers "was not conversant with English language, which is the language in which the alleged gift deed dated 23-5-2007 and 2-6-2008 have been executed".