KUNDAN LAL Vs. SRI NARAIN LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The applicant, who was the defendant in the Court below, challenged through this revision application an order of the Court below allowing the opposite party, plaintiff to amend his plaint. The suit was for possession over a house. It seems that the applicant took possession of the house and after demolishing it constructed a new house in its place; but this fact was not mentioned in the plaint and the relief claimed was just for possession of the opposite party's house. The opposite party applied for amendment of the plaint in order to make it clear that he sought possession over his old house and not over the new house constructed on it's site by the applicant. The application for amendment was opposed by the applicant, who pleaded that the value of the house constructed by him was more than Rs. 5000/-, that consequently the suit was not within the jurisdiction of the lower Court and that it had no jurisdiction to pass any order including one allowing the amendment. The lower Court held that through the amendment the opposite party was only clarifying the relief that he wanted and that it could allow the clarification regardless of the question of jurisdiction. Accordingly it allowed the amendment.

(2.) Through the amendment, the opposite party has only clarified what he meant in the plaint; he did not want any reduction in the subject-matter covered by the plaint. When he wanted only to explain what he meant in the plaint, there could not arise any question of jurisdiction to allow the amendment. If the opposite party did not originally seek possession over the house constructed by the applicant at the cost of more than Rs. 5,000/-, the suit was not beyond the jurisdiction of the lower Court. If the only effect of the amendment is that the opposite party makes this clear, there was nothing to bar the amendment being allowed. It is not that the opposite party originally claimed possession over the house constructed by the applicant and now through the amendment sought a different relief of less valuation.

(3.) Even if the opposite party had in this original plaint sought possession over the house constructed by the applicant and consequently the suit had been beyond the pecuniary jurisdiction of the Court below, we hold that the Court below had jurisdiction to allow the amendment in order to reduce the valuation of the suit so as to bring it within its pecuniary jurisdiction. The powers of a Court to allow amendment are very wide. It cannot be doubted that a Court has jurisdiction to pass certain orders even though it has no jurisdiction to try the suit; it has power to find that it is beyond its jurisdiction, it has power to order the plaint to be amended so as to enhance the valuation and it has power to return the plaint for presentation to a competent Court. When a Court has jurisdiction to pass certain orders, even though it has no jurisdiction to try the suit, there is no justification for saying that it cannot allow an amendment, if it has no jurisdiction to try the suit.