KARTAR SINGH Vs. HARCHAND SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE plaintiff (petitioner herein) filed a suit against the respondents for joint possession of 56 Bighas 8 Biswas of land, the plaint having been drafted on the basis of the jamabandi for the year 1973-74. The suit of the petitioner was decreed to the extent of his share and the appeal filed by the respondent No. 1 was dismissed. It has been stated by Mr. Hemant Kumar Gupta, learned counsel for the petitioner that the second appeal filed by the respondent in this Court was also dismissed. After obtaining the decree in his favour, the petitioner, approached the Executing Court for the execution of the same, when it transpired that some of the khasra numbers mentioned in the decree and the area thereof, were incorrect and some khasra numbers which ought to have been excluded, had been included while others which ought to have been included, had been excluded. It also transpired that the. actual land was 48 Bighas 7 Biswas and not 56 Bighas 8 Biswas, as claimed in the plaint. The petitioner, thereafter, filed an application on March 30, 1983 before the trial Court under Section 152 of the CPC praying that the decree sheet be amended as the mistakes made therein had been occasioned due to the mistakes in the jamabandi which had been given to the petitioner by the revenue authority. It was stated in the application that these mistakes were accidental in nature which needed to be rectified. The trial Court dismissed the application on May 8, 1984 holding that there had been no accidental slip on the part of any Court official and that in any case, the mistake that was sought to be corrected, was not within the purview of Section 152 of the Code of Civil Procedure as there was no clerical or arithmetical mistake. Aggrieved by the order dated May 8, 1984, the present petition has been filed.

(2.) MR. Hemant Gupta, learned counsel for the petitioner, has urged, relying upon Pritam Singh v. P. Didar Singh and Anr. , 1976 Rev. L. R. 586 and Mohinder Singh v. Teja Singh, A. I. R. 1979 Punjab and Haryana, 47, that the scope of Section 152 C. P. C. could not be artificially limited and was wide enough to correct a mistake or of an accidental slip or omission traceable to the conduct of the parties themselves and so palpably clear that no body could possibly have any doubt as to what the parties or the Court meant and such corrections could be made under Section 152 of the Code. He has also urged that the accidental slip or error envisaged by Section 152 C. P. C. could be corrected even at the stage of execution by making necessary corrections in the decree sheet and it was not necessary that an amendment should be first sought in the plaint.

(3.) MR. Gurcharan Singh, the learned counsel appearing for the respondents has, however, urged that the khasra numbers recorded in the decree sheet were incorporated on the basis of the claim made by the petitioner in the plaint and these numbers had been incorporated in the judgment as also the decree and as such, Section 152 of the Code of Civil Procedure could not come to the assistance of the petitioner. He has also urged that it was not clear from the evidence recorded in the application as to which khasra Numbers were ordered to be added and deleted in the decree sheet. He has relied upon Lungya Balya Dhangar v. Bansilal Pusaram Mahesari, AIR 1950, Nagpur 95, to urge that when an investigation into the nature of correction was required to be made, Section 152 of the Code of Civil Procedure, could not come into play.