RAM CHAND Vs. KARAMVIR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In an ejectment suit, a compromise was entered into between the parties whereby the petitioner agreed to surrender possession of the property in dispute on payment of Rs. 12,500/- for the construction of a Card Board Factory by the respondents. It was further stipulated in the agreement that if the respondents failed to set up the factory, the petioners woudl be entitled to the restoration of the possession of the said property. As the respondents failed to set up the factory, he filed the present suit for recovery of possession of the suit property in accordance with the said agreement. One of the legal objections raised by the respondents was that the suit, as framed, was not maintainable and it was necessary for the plaintiff to claim specific performance of the agreement. The trial Court upheld this objection and dismissed the suit. In the appeal filed by the petitioner, he moved an application for amendment of the plaint so as to convert the relief in to one for specific performance of the agreement in the alternative, which was declined. Aggrieved thereby, he has come up in this revision.

(2.) The learned Additional District Judge rejected the prayer for amendment on two grounds that it was highly belated having been made after eight years of the filing of the suit and that a new cause of action would be introduced by the proposed amendment. On none of the grounds, the amendment could be declined. It has been repeatedly held that delay by itself is no ground to disallow an amendment. The other ground given is wholly unsustainable because by no stretch of reasoning can it be said that by claiming an alternative relief, the cause of action would be changed. Neither any new facts were to be pleaded nor any evidence to be led and the alternative relief was being claimed on the facts already pleaded. The learned Additional District Judge, thus, acted illegally in the exercise of his jurisdiction in declining the prayer for amendment on wholly unsustainable grounds. This revisions is, accordingly, allowed and the impugned order reversed. However, nothing stated in the order should be taken as an expression of any opinion on the question whether the suit, as framed, was competent or to mean that the order of the trial Court, in any way, stands approved by allowing the proposed amendment. No costs.