HARI KRISHNA DAS Vs. DINOR KINLA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a decision of the learned Subordinate Judge of Midnapore affirming the decision of the Munsif. The suit was brought by the plaintiff for a declaration of his title to 1 1/2 bighas of land. The plaintiff has failed in both the Courts below. In the lower Appellate Court he was unsuccessful on the ground that he failed to define what was the nature of the interest in the land for which he asked the Court to make a declaration in his favour. In that, obviously, the learned Subordinate Judge was right. The plaintiff did not inform the Court whether the land which he claimed was held subject to the payment of rent or rentfree or in absolute interest or in any other more limited interest. The reasans are not far to seek when one looks into the judgment of the Court of first instance, because the plaintiff deliberately attempted to shift during the trial of the case the nature of the title which he claimed, and in this suit obviously the Court ought not to declare the title of the plaintiff without knowing what the nature of that title is. It is quite clear that the learned Subordinate Judge exercised a proper discretion when he declined to declare the plaintiff s title to a piece of land in which he did not know what interest the plaintiff had.

(2.) Then it is said that the application made by the plaintiff for amending the plaint ought to have been allowed. This is not the place where in the ordinary course a question of this nature should be decided. That is a matter purely within the discretion of the Judges of the lower Courts and they not having permitted such an amendment, we ought not, in the ordinary course, to interfere with the discretion deliberately exercised by the Judges of the Courts below, unless we are satisfied that they came to a wrong, conclusion. From the course the case took in the Court of first instance, it seems to me that these learned Judges exercised a wise discretion in refusing to allow the plaintiff to amend his plaint during the progress of the suit. In that view, the decision arrived at by the learned Subordinate Judge of the lower Appellate Court in correct. The present appeal, therefore, fails and must be dismissed with costs. Teunon, J.

(3.) I agree.