CHAMAN LAL NARANG Vs. ASHWANI KUMAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) TWO points have been urged by Mr. Jatinder Vir Gupta in support of this petition for revision of the order of the Rent Controller, Chandigarh, dated February 27, 1973, allowing the landlord respondent to amend their application for ejectment of the petitioner by adding thereto the ground of further subletting of a portion of the premises to Mr. D. Paul, a photographer, during the pendency of the eviction proceedings, namely:

(2.) MR. Nand Lal Dhingra, the learned counsel for the respondents, has invited my attention to the judgment of A. N. Bhandari, C. J. (as he then was), in Mathra Das v. Om Parkash, 1957-59 Pun LR 45, wherein it has been held that a Court of law possesses inherent powers to act ex debito justitiae to do real and substantial justice for the administration of which alone it exists and to do all things that are reasonably necessary for securing the ends of justice within the scope of its jurisdiction. The learned Chief Justice held in that case that every procedure is permissible before a special tribunal unless it is shown to be prohibited by law. For that proposition he relied on the Full Bench judgment of the Allahabad High Court in Narsingh Das v. Mangal Dubey, (1882) ILR 5 All 163. It is not disputed by Mr. Dhingra that the provisions of Order 6, Rule 17 do not as such apply to proceedings before the Rent Controller. He has no the other hand laid emphasis on the fact that when the powers of a tribunal are not fettered by the special procedure laid down for it by any statute, its powers are wider than those of an ordinary Court. He has contended that the conduct of proceedings before a special court, the procedure before which is not regulated by any particular law, must be deemed to be in its own discretion. I agree with these submissions of Mr. Dhingra. Only the power to issue summons (to enforce the attendance of a witness and to compel the production of evidence) conferred by the Code of Civil Procedure has been specifically vested in a Rent Controller under Section 16 of the Act. I have, therefore, no hesitation in holding that the Court of a Rent Controller has the inherent jurisdiction to allow amendment of pleadings in eviction cases pending before it for good and sufficient reasons. There is no bar in any law to the exercise of that power by a Rent Controller.

(3.) THERE is no doubt that the landlord could have included the ground of subsequent subletting in any of the petitions for eviction (on the ground of nonpayment of rent for subsequent periods) filed by him after the alleged subletting. That does not, however, mean that if two courses are legally open to a litigant, he should be compelled by the Court to resort to that one out of those which suits the opposite party. As there is no bar to the landlord taking up the additional plea by amending his original petition, he cannot, in my opinion, be compelled to take the new ground only in a fresh application for eviction. Courts should not lend their hands to avoidable multiplicity of proceedings and should always try to effectively decide the matters in issue between the parties in the same litigation so far as it is permissible by law. In the circumstances of the case I do not consider that the rent Controller acted either illegally or improperly in allowing the application of the landlord respondents for amending, their application for eviction of the petitioner. The desirability of allowing amendments of pleadings to take notice of changed circumstances during the pendency of a case in order to shorten litigation and to avoid circuity of action by the Courts has been authoritatively recognised by the Supreme Court in Nair Service Society Ltd. v. K. C. Alexander, AIR 1968 SC 1165.