- (1.) After having heard the learned counsel for the parties at some length and in order to remove apparent confusion caused by the improper presentation of a single application under Order 6 Rule 17 read with Section 151 CPC for amending the plaint and Order 1 Rule 10 CPC for impleading proposed defendant Nos.6 to 15 and with a view to stem the ill-effects of such a practice and the difficulty the trial Judge must face in passing a common order mixed-up by both law and facts I feel that it will serve the cause of justice more suitably if the learned trial Judge is asked to decide by separate orders the matters afresh after the applicant is called upon to file two independent applications with proper court fee affixed thereon and presented in the proper form. This would serve the ends of justice in a wholesome manner and make it easier for the trial court and this Court whenever such challenge is laid again.
(2.) As a prophylactic, trial courts should disallow acceptance of such clubbed applications at the threshold, and if insisted, they should be returned forthwith to their owners with liberty to file them afresh by removing such patent defects. This pernicious practice has started, as I have found recently in more than one case in my present roster to examine interlocutory orders in civil revisions, to be a growing baggage of unwanted litigation. It should be curbed immediately. The mode adopted by the plaintiff in presenting two requests in one application can create havoc on the lis by impairing a Judge to think rationally and purposively when he is already overburdened with judicial work weighed in units. One applicationone order should be the norm scrupulously followed in the trial courts without any exception. If insisted, the Trial Courts should feel free to invoke their powers under Section 35B CPC to impose Costs.
(3.) When we examine such an issue as the one involving a clubbed application of the kind presented in this case, then by clubbing reliefs by intermingling facts necessary for the reliefs and causes of action and the pleadings, it is manifest that such a party is trying to steal a march by what appears either oblique motive or an engineering feat in delaying tactics thereby giving rise to a judicial dilemma not worth foisting on the already belaboured trial Judge. In the very nature of things the application under Order 1 Rule 10 CPC would have to be decided first to determine who should be added as parties in an ongoing suit. Once that is decided and if such parties are introduced each one of them would have a right to file their defence by presentation of a written statement admitting or denying the facts on which the plaintiff relies upon to obtain a decree. All such newly added parties would have a right to do many things including filing or presenting set offs and counter claims, applications under Order 7 Rule 10 & 11 CPC, raising issues of limitations, seeking recall of witnesses examined by the plaintiff in their absence to face cross-examination, demanding reframing of issues, relying on burden and onus, and godknows- what, and other lurking steps in the proceedings not known or imagined even to a trained legal mind. Then, if the proposed amendments are allowed then each of the newly added defendants would have a right to traverse the averments made in the original plaint plus counter and rebut the amendments as may be allowed by the court in the plaint by putting in written statements leading to recasting or adding new issues the necessity of which may arise and cannot be stopped when justice demands. The complications and complexities that may arise in the future of the suit are imponderable. To travel such lengths for a party to allow change of track and the nature and character of suits is a question which begs answers from case to case. The twosome prayers co-existing in a single bed may seem awkward bedfellows to a regimented legally trained mind and as one which would ought not to be seen to swim together, ride the same horse or if they are put in the same boat they cannot set sail in unison or cycle in tandem. More likely to drown together. This will make any Judge sweat and perspire if the winds of change are prayed for in one lot in one go.;