K.Ahmed, J. - (1.)This is an application in revision and is directed against the order dated 5-8-60 whereby the trial court refused to allow one of the two amendments sought to be made in the plaint. In the plaint, the plaintiffs claimed certain settlement from the Banaili Raj and, in support of that claim, the original averment made in paragraph 3 of the plaint was that they had taken the settlement from the landlord, Kumar Krishnanand Singh of Banaili. This plaint was filed on 31st March, 1959. Thereafter the defendants 2nd party filed written statement on 27-4-59. In paragraph 8 of the written statement, the plea set up by the defendants was that in the year 1944, as stated in paragraph 3 of the plaint, the lands in suit could not be settled by the landlord. The matter for the time being stood at that stage. Thereafter on 3-8-60 the application for amendment was filed by the plaintiffs. One of the amend-ments sought thereunder, which is the subject-matter of controversy before me, was that the settlement was made by the receiver of the Banaili Raj Estate. This was objected to by the defendants. The court, on hearing the parties came to the following conclusion :
"This great delay shows that the application is not made in good faith and it suffers from gross laches on the part of the plffs. The learned lawyer for the defts. has strongly opposed this amend-ment on these grounds. The prayer for this first amendment is therefore rejected."
This finding has been supported by the learned advocate appearing for the members of the opposite party on two grounds (i) that the amendment; changes the story about the settlement completely, for, originally, settlement as claimed was from the landlord, Kumar Krishnanand Singh, and now it is said to have been made by the receiver of the Banaili Raj; and (ii) that there is a clear finding of the trial court that the prayer has not been made in good faith.
(2.)It is not disputed that the estate had been In the hands of receiver since 1938 and is still under the hands of some receiver or the other at least in so far as the estate is composed of non-zamindari property. Accordingly, it has been argued, that if the estate was in the hands of the receiver since the year 1938, the property, which forms part of the Banaili Raj, could not be settled by the landlord, Kumar Krishnanand Singh, in the year 1944. I, therefore, think that, if this amendment is allowed in spite of the objection already taken by the defendants in paragraph 8 of their written statement, that would be making a new case regarding the settlement and that would further amount to filling up of a lacuna as pointed out by the defence in the aforesaid paragraph. Relying therefore on a decision in Harish Chandra Bajpai v. Triloki Singh, (S) AIR 1957 SC 444, it has been argued on behalf of the defendants that the court) was right on this ground alone in rejecting the application for the aforesaid amendment.
(3.)Secondly, as stated above, it has been argued that there is a clear finding of the court below that the application for amendment has not been made in good faith and therefore, for that reason also, as observed in Tildesley v. Harper, (1878) 10 Ch D 393, by Bramwell, L. J. there is no justification for me to interfere with a discretion already exercised by the trial court in the matter. In the aforesaid case, Bramwell, L. J., has observed :
"My practice has always been to give leave to amend unless I have been satisfied that the party applying was acting mala fide, or that, by his blunder, he had done some injury to his opponent which could not be compensated for by costs or! otherwise."
Personally, I think that, as a rule, amendment should be allowed to be made as far as possible so that the matter at issue between the parties should be disposed of completely and fully. Here, however, there is one point which creates the difficulty in the way of acting on that principle and that is that the finding given by the trial court is that the application was not made in good faith. If that finding stands, I am afraid there is no justification for me to interfere with the discretion already exercised by the trial court. There is no doubt that the objection was taken so far back as on 27-4-59 to the effect that the settlement as claimed by the plaintiffs in paragraph 3 of the plaint could not be made by the landlord. In fact had the plaintiffs been alert, they could have filed the petition for amendment then and there to explain that by 'landlord' they meant the 'receiver' who was in charge of the Raj on behalf of the landlord. Unfortunately, it was not done till 3-8-60 till a year or so after the filing of the written statement. If, therefore, on that basis, _ the trial court has drawn an inference that this was so due to want of good faith on the part! of the plaintiffs, I think it would not be proper for me, sitting in revision, to interfere with the discretion exercised by the trial court in the matter. Accordingly, I hold that the application has no substance and the same is dismissed. In the circumstances of the case, however, there will be no order for costs.