RAJAMANI VANCHEESWARAN Vs. MUTHUKUMARAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner is 1st defendant in O.S.No.521 of 2001 on the file of the District Munsif Court, Alandur. It is a suit for permanent injunction filed by the plaintiff. After the trial was commenced, the respondent/plaintiff filed an application under Order 6 Rule 17 and Section 151 C.P.C for amending the plaint for inclusion of declaratory relief. In the affidavit he has alleged that the respondent/defendants have filed O.S.No.269 of 1999 against him for permanent injunction before the same Court and the said suit was decreed on 27.11.2008 in their favour. Hence, the plaintiff is coming forward to amend the prayer suitably by praying for a declaration that he is the owner of the suit property. THE respondents are challenging the petitioner's title. THEre are documents produced to show their rights. Hence, the declaratory relief may be permitted to be included in the plaint for proper adjudication of the suit.

(2.) IN the counter filed by the defendants, it is stated that the Court has accepted the case of respondents. When once the title or possession considered by the Court, the question of asking for additional relief of declaration that the plaintiff is the owner of the suit property, has got no meaning and the petitioner has filed the petition only to delay the process. The market value has to be assessed on the date of filing of the petition and the same has not been done. There is no proper cause of action in the above suit for the relief of declaration now sought for in the petition and hence, the petition may be dismissed.

(3.) THE learned counsel for the petitioner Mr.M. Aravind Subramanian would submit that inasmuch as the suit filed by the petitioner in O.S.No.269 of 1999 long back and afterwards the present suit has been filed in O.S.No.521 of 2001 and this petitioner filed written statement as early as 2001, the claim of the petitioner was known to the respondent even in 2001 and only in 2006 he filed an application to implead this petitioner in his suit and even after a long time, at the fag end of 2009, he filed amendment application and that O.S.No.269 of 1999 was decreed in favour of this petitioner against which the respondent preferred appeal in A.S.No.2 of 2009 on the file of the Sub-Court Tambaram which suffered dismissal on 27.07.2010 and there is no scope for entertaining the amendment petition presently. It is his further contention that the relief claimed in the proposed amendment has been hopelessly barred by time and the court below has failed to take note of it.