CHAMPA DEVI Vs. KULDEEP SINGH AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY means of this petition the Petitioner has challenged the order dated 18.12.2008 whereby the learned trial Court has permitted the Plaintiff to amend the plaint.

(2.) BRIEFLY stated the facts of the case are that in the year 2001 Respondent No. 1 (here -in -after referred to as the Plaintiff) filed a suit against the State of H.P. and its functionaries claiming that they had no right to take water from Jard Khad to the land of the Defendants. Later the Petitioner and proforma Defendants were impleaded as parties to the suit. The Plaintiff initially claimed that he had a customary right of easement to use the water of this Khad. The case was still at the pre trial stage since replication had still to be filed when the Plaintiff filed an application seeking amendment.

(3.) IN my opinion these judgments do not help the Petitioner. As far as the judgment of the Madras High Court is concerned that deals with the question of easementary rights. At the stage of allowing or disallowing the amendment the merits of the contention cannot be gone into. As far as the judgment of this Court in Prikshat Mehdudia's case is concerned in that case the amendment was disallowed since it was moved at the fag end of the trial and that was one of the main reasons why the amendment was disallowed. The judgment of this Court in Satya Parkash and others has no relevance whatsoever to the present case since in that case the suit had been filed in the year 1984 and the amendment application seeking leave to amend the written statement to introduce a counter claim was filed in the year 2008 i.e. 24 years after the suit had been filed and therefore ex facie the claim was time barred.