CHUNNILAL TALUKDAR Vs. SMT. KUMUDINI PAUL AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) OPPOSITE parties herein as plaintiffs filed a suit before the Learned Munsiff No. 1 Goalpara which was registered as Title Suit No. 57 of 1983 against the present petitioner for a decree for eviction of the petitioner from the suit premises and for recovery of possession. The ground, inter alia, was that the present petitioner as a tenant defaulted in payment of monthly rent from the month of January, 1982 to June, 1983. In the written statement vide paragraph 7, the present petitioner took the plea that from August, 1976 to December, 1981 monthly rent was paid regularly and receipts were also granted; but as the opposite parties refused to accept rent from the month of January, 1982 the rent was deposited in the court under the provisions of the Law. The suit proceeded for trial and after closure of evidence and at the stage of argument the present petitioner filed a petition for amendment of paragraph 7 of the written statement on the ground of typographical error. The copy of the said petition is at Annexure 1 to the present petition. From the said petition, it appears that the petitioner wanted to change the year 1981 to 1982 occurring in 18th line of paragraph 7 and the year 1982 to 1983 occurring in 22nd line of the said paragraph. In other words, the defendant wanted to change the plea regarding payment of rent and wanted to plead that rent from August, 1976 to December, 1982 was paid regularly and that on refusal the said rent was deposited in the court from the month of January, 1983.

(2.) THE Learned trial court by the impugned order rejected the prayer of amendment mainly on the ground that errors in the evidence cannot be allowed to be corrected by amending the pleadings at the final stage of the suit.

(3.) THE Apex court in Ganesh Trading Company (supra) held that procedural law is intended to facilitate and not to obstruct the course of substantive justice and that provisions relating to pleadings in civil cases are meant to give to each side intimation of the case of the other so that it may be met, to enable courts to determine what is really at issue between parties, and to prevent deviation from the course which litigation on particular cases of action must take. The Apex Court also held that provisions for the amendment of pleadings are intended for promoting the ends of justice and not for defeating them and that even if a party or its counsel is inefficient insetting out its case initially the shortcomings can certainly be removed generally by appropriate steps taken by a party. The Apex Court, however, held that if lapse of time has barred the remedy on a newly constituted cause of action the court should, ordinarily refuse prayers for amendment of pleadings.