Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Lawrence Christoper Fernandes v. Errol F. MC Mahon, 2017 SCC OnLine Bom 8620
Lawrence Christoper Fernandes v. Errol F. MC Mahon, 2017 SCC OnLine Bom 8620
to the petitioners.
8. On 12/1/2016, the respondent filed an application for amendment of plaint
seeking introduction of para 12A as under:
“12A : That the Passport copy of the plaintiff on record clearly shows the entry
and exit of the plaintiff into and from India, as the case may be during the relevant
periods indicated therein. It is also the case of the plaintiff that the plaintiff was not
present in India on 17/11/2006 and 15/9/2010 as per the passport copy placed on
record and hence no document could have been signed by the plaintiff on
17/11/2006 and 15/9/2010, as alleged by the defendant no. 1, without prejudice to
the fact that the alleged Agreement dated 17/11/2006 and receipt dated
15/9/2010 besides other such documents relied by the defendants are totally
manipulated in nature, in order to put forth and support various false pleas,
including that of an alleged loan mentioned in the written statement.”
9. The learned trial court by an order dated 30/8/2016 allowed the application for
amendment incorporating para 12A as above. On 23/2/2017 the petitioners filed
‘additional written statement’ to the amended plaint along with leave to produce the
additional written statement and for condonation of delay as it was filed beyond the
period of 90 days. The learned trial court by the impugned order has rejected the
application. Hence this petition.
10. I have heard Shri Joshi the learned counsel for the petitioners and Shri
Rodrigues, the learned counsel for the respondent. With the assistance of the learned
counsel for the parties I have gone through the record and the impugned order
passed.
11. At the outset it needs to be mentioned that there is no provision under the
Code of Civil Procedure (C.P.C) for filing an additional written statement as such to the
amended plaint. What the law contemplates is the ‘consequential amendment’, to the
written statement, in the event the plaintiff is allowed to carry out an amendment to
the plaint. The amendment to the written statement, to the extent it is consequential
in nature, has to be allowed. In fact, once the plaint is allowed to be amended, the
suit is required to be fixed for carrying out the consequential amendment to the
written statement, if any. The roznama as was produced by the parties for perusal
during the course of the arguments does not show that after the amendment to the
plaint was carried out on 1/9/2016, the suit was fixed for carrying out consequential
amendment. The roznama discloses that after 1/9/2016, the suit was fixed on
16/9/2016 when it was adjourned to 6/12/2016 for filing additional written statement.
On 6/12/2016 and 16/12/2016 the suit was adjourned on account of the Presiding
Officer being transferred. The suit thereafter was fixed on 27/1/2017 on which date an
application (Exhibit D-31) for recasting of the issues was filed by the respondent and
the suit was posted on 14/2/2017. After hearing the parties on application Exhibit (D-
31) the suit was posted for 8/3/2017 for orders. In the meanwhile, the petitioner no. 1
filed the application Exhibit (D-33) on 27/2/2017 along with additional written
statement Exhibit (D-34).
12. It can thus be seen that the trial court without adverting to the fact that the
amendment to the extent it is consequential in nature has to be allowed, has rejected
the application for filing the additional written statement. In fact the normal course
would have been to permit consequential amendment to the written statement. Albeit,
under the garb of such consequential amendment, the defendant cannot be allowed to
bring some new facts/pleadings on record which would essentially be governed by a
prayer for amendment under Order VI Rule 17 of C.P.C., if so made.
13. I have carefully gone through the additional written statement and I find that
except for para 11A and a part of para 11B, the rest of the part of the additional
written statement cannot be said to be consequential in nature. Para 11A and a part of
SCC Online Web Edition, © 2024 EBC Publishing Pvt. Ltd.
Page 3 Friday, April 05, 2024
Printed For: Saket Bansal, Symbiosis Law School
SCC Online Web Edition: http://www.scconline.com
© 2024 EBC Publishing Pvt. Ltd., Lucknow.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------