NARAYANAN NAIR Vs. APPU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Plaintiff is the revision petitioner. He sued for a permanent injunction to restrain the 3rd defendant, Deputy Tahsildar, from disbursing the compensation amount for trees cut from the suit property, to respondents 1 and 2 Respondents 1 and 2 are the tenants of the petitioner and the trees cut belonged to the petitioner and as such, according to the petitioner, he was entitled to compensation of the trees. Along with the suit the petitioner applied in I. A. 2314/69 for a temporary injunction restraining the 3rd defendant from paying the amount of compensation to respondents 1 and 2, and the latter from receiving the same. That application was dismissed by the Trial Court, but was allowed in C.M. Appeal No. 99/70 by the learned Subordinate Judge of Kozhikode. But in the mean" time it was reported that the amount was already disbursed and received by defendants 1 and 2. Thereupon the plaintiff sought to amend the plaint so as to convert the suit into one for recovery of the amount. This petition for amendment was rejected on the ground that the remedy open to the plaintiff is to institute another suit. The order is clearly wrong. The amendment sought for cannot be said to constitute the addition of a new cause of action or raise a different case, but would amount only to a different or additional approach to the same facts as held on similar facts by the Supreme Court in A. K. Gupta & sons v. Damodar Valley Corporation ( AIR 1967 SC 96 ). The Supreme Court has again held in Manohar Lal v. N.B.M. Supply, Gurgaon ( AIR 1969 SC 1267 ) thus; "Rules of procedure are intended to be a handmaid to the administration of justice. A party cannot be refused just relief merely because of some mistake, negligence, inadvertence or even infraction of the rules of procedure. The Court always gives leave to amend the pleading of a party, unless it is satisfied that the party applying was acting mala fide, or that by his blunder, he had caused injury to his opponent which may not be compensated for by an order of costs."