CHAGANTY KATAMRAJU Vs. MADAVARAPPU PARIPURNANANDAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application to amend the description of item 1 of the plaint schedule and the decree schedule in a suit which was ultimately disposed of by this Court in S.A. No. 1607 of 1945, by substituting for old survey No. 23 corresponding to Re -Survey No. 17/1 Re -survey No. 23/1 corresponding to revision Survey No. 27/1. The petitioner was the plaintiff in a suit which was for recovery of several items of property on the allegation that they were properties which originally belonged to one Chelamayya and the plaintiff and defendants 1 and 2 were the nearest reversions of the said Chelamayya. The third defendant was made a party as evidently interested in item 1, and the case proceeded in both the lower Courts and in this Court on the footing that the third defendant was interested in item 1 of the plaint schedule. After the disposal of the second appeal by this Court, the plaintiff discovered that an error had crept into the description of the first item. The description in the plaint schedule was that it comprised 1 acre 35 cents out of R.S. No. 17/1 corresponding to Re -Survey No. 23. The correct description should have been Re -Survey No. 23/1 corresponding to Revision Survey No. 27/1. That this is the correct description is clear from the sale deed in favour of the third defendant and the written statement filed by him in the suit. This mistake in the plaint schedule was never brought to the attention of the Court at any time, and the litigation proceeded on the footing that what the plaintiff was claiming was the property in the possession of the third defendant. It was not for instance alleged in any of the written statements that item 1 was a property which did not belong to the estate of the last male holder.

(2.) THIS application is strongly opposed by the third defendant on two grounds : (1) that there has been very long delay, and (2) that the Court is not competent to grant this application for amendment of the plaint schedule after the disposal of the suit. As regards the first objection, undoubtedly there has been delay, if by delay is meant the time which has elapsed since the institution of the suit. But as I have already mentioned, this mistake evidently escaped the attend in of parties till very recently. There is therefore no avoidable delay on the part of the petitioner. It has not been shown that on account of this delay circumstances have intervened which would make it inequitable to grant the application. It is difficult to follow the other objection. What is now sought in this application is not an amendment of the pleadings as such; it is really an application to correct an error which has crept also into the decrees. The wide language of Sections 152 and 153 of the Civil Procedure Code, would in my opinion, cover a case like the present. The correction of an error need not always amount to an amendment of a pleading. I do not think it correct to treat this application as an application under Order 6, Rule 17. The passage cited by the learned advocate for the respondent from Halsbury's Laws of England, volume 26, at page 56 namely,

(3.) THE petition is allowed.