MOHAN SINGH Vs. KANSHI RAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) An application of the plaintiff-petitioner for leave to amend paragraph 4 of his plaint so as to substitute the word "Ladwa" in place of "Ram Nagar" having been refused by the trial Court, the plaintiff has come up to this court for revision of that order. The plaintiff-petitioner's claim in the trial Court is for recovery of Rs. 4,500/- from the defendant on the basis of a promisory note. The promisory note was filed in the trial Court with the plaint. In paragraph 4 of the plaint, it was stated as below :-

(2.) I have seen the original promisory note which has been scribed by Shri Ram of Ladwa whose signatures and village of residence are mentioned in his own handwriting. Out of the three attesting witnesses to the receipt attached to the promisory note, Ajit Singh has described himself as of Ram Nagar, but Gurmukh Singh and Harbhajan Singh have given their addresses as that of Nirwasi. The names of all the three attesting witnesses are mentioned in paragraph 1 of the plaint. It has been specifically stated therein that "the amount in question was paid to be defendant in the presence of Harbhajan Singh son of Sadhu Singh, Gurmukh Singh son of Badhawa Singh, and Ajit Singh who also signed the receipt. The same is attached in original." In these circumstances, there could be no motive for the plaintiff either to mention a wrong place of payment in the receipt attached to the promisory note or to attempt the name of a wrong place being substituted for the correct one in the plaint. It would have been different if no names of the witnesses were mentioned in the plaint or their addresses were not mentioned in the promisory note and it could be argued that not having been able to find witnesses of Ram Nagar and having somehow located some persons of Ladwa who were prepared to oblige him, he is now trying to shift the transaction to Ladwa. That is not the case here. Except for the scribe, none of the witnesses is of Ladwa. The plaintiff has named all the attesting witnesses in the plaint. He has not stated that any one other than those persons was present. He has so circumscribed his case in the plaint backed by the original documents that there could be no valid reasons for his deliberately mentioning Ram Nagar in his plaint and replication. Moreover, it is significant that the plaintiff has not stated in the body of the plaint as to where the money was lent. It is in the formal paragraph 4 of the plaint relating to the territorial jurisdiction of the court that Ram Nagar has been brought in. The plaintiff belongs to Ram Nagar. He has stated that the parties belong to Tehsil Thanesar. It appears that without proper cause the name of the residential village of the plaintiff was mentioned in paragraph 4 of the plaint as the place at which the loan was given by the person who drafted the plaint. As to whether, in fact, any loan was given at all and if so, whether it was given at Ladwa or Ram Nagar are not matters into which the court can go at this stage. If the promissory note was executed by the defendant, in consideration of money paid to him, it is wholly immaterial whether it was paid at Ladwa or Ram Nagar. Both the places are within the territorial jurisdiction of Karnal Courts. The amendment in question is, therefore more or less formal and does not go to the root of the matter. The trial Court has, in my view, grossly erred in holding that it will cause irreparable injury to the defendant-respondent.

(3.) Mr. V.K. Bali, learned counsel for the petitioner, has relied on the judgment of the Supreme Court in Jai Jai Ram Manohar Lal v. National Building Material Supply, Gurgaon, 1969 AIR(SC) 1267 wherein their Lordships have laid down that an application for amendment cannot be refused on the ground that there was no averment therein that the misdescription was on account of a bona fide mistake, and on that account the suit must fail. It was observed that there is no rule that unless in an application for amendment of the plaint it is expressly averred that the error is due to a bona fide mistake, the court has no power to grant leave to amend the plaint. Their Lordships held that the power to grant amendment of the pleadings is intended to serve the ends of justice and is not governed by any such narrow or technical limitations. The arguments of Mr. N.C. Jain, learned counsel for the defendant-respondent, have been advanced to uphold the error of the trial Court in not allowing amendment within the narrow and technical limitations so as to cause injustice to the plaintiffs whose counsel might have written the word "Ram Nagar" in paragraph 4 of the plaint without making any inquiry from the plaintiff myself or otherwise due to some error. The fact that the suit might fail if the amendment is not allowed merely because this kind of immaterial error, does not in my opinion go in favour of the defendant-respondent but advances the case of the plaintiff-petitioners. In Jai Jai Ram Manohar Lal's case , the Supreme Court went to the length of allowing the amendment in the description of the plaintiff which would ordinarily appear to be very serious. As compared with that, the amendment prayed for in the instant case is of a very minor nature. Moreover, what has influenced me most is that the defendant in paragraph 4 of his written statement did not stop at denying the receipt of the money at Ram Nagar but went to the length of making an absolutely total denial of the claim of the plaintiff by adding that the plaintiff has no cause of action because the pronote and the receipt are without consideration. He went to the length of saying that the plaintiff never contacted the defendant because nothing was due to be paid to him. The defendant himself has, therefore, not laid any emphasis on non-payment of loan-money at Ram Nagar so as to possibly imply that the payment could have been made else where. In Ippili Satyanarayana v. The Amadalayalasa Cooperative Agricultural and Industrial Society Ltd., 1975 AIR(AP) 22 it was held that where the defence is one of total denial of the suit transaction there is no question of the defendant being prejudiced by the amendment. I am in full agreement with that view. Following the same, I hold that the trial Court was in error in observing that the defendant would be prejudiced by the amendment.