IMPORTANT POINT
The application pleading taking into account subsequent events of the tenants having been inducted during the pendency of first appeal are vague and hence are liable to be rejected.

ORDER

In the year 1981, the landlords-respondents filed a suit for eviction of the tenant-appellant from a shop situated on the ground floor and a room situated on the first floor alleging that the premises were required bonafide by the landlord for his own occupation mainly for commencing cloth business in the shop, a ground available under Section 5(1)(c) of the Assam Urban Areas Rent Control Act, 1972. The ground for eviction was held to be proved by the Trial Court as also by the Appellate Court. A revision preferred by the tenant in the High Court was also dismissed. This is an appeal filed by the tenant by special leave.

2. So far as the finding of the Trial Court upheld by the first Appellate Court and by the High Court in revision based on the averments made in the plaint is concerned, no fault can be found therewith. What we are called upon to consider in this appeal is the impact of subsequent events to which the tenant-appellant invited the attention of the first Appellate Court as also of this Court by moving applications. We will deal with the two applications to examine if any of the two applications satisfied the requirement of bringing such subsequent events on record of which a Court of Law is bound to take notice and whether such subsequent events ought to have been inquired into for disentitling the landlord-respondent from decree for eviction as granted by the Trial Court.

3. The law as to subsequent events has been examined in details and summed up in a recent decision of this Court in Om Prakash Gupta vs. Ranbir B. Goyal (2002) 2 SCC 256, a decision to which both of us are a party. The same law has been reiterated by a subsequent Division Bench in J.J. Lal Pvt. Ltd. And Others vs. M. R. Murali and another (2002) 3 SCC 98. It has been held :

"The ordinary rule of civil law is that the rights of the parties stand crystallised on the date of the institution of the suit and, therefore, the decree in a suit should accord with the rights of the parties as they stood at the commencement of the lis. However, the Court has power to take note of subsequent events and mould the relief accordingly subject to the following conditions being satisfied: (i) that the relief, as claimed originally has, by reason of subsequent events, become inappropriate or cannot be granted; (ii) that taking note of such subsequent event or changed circumstances would shorten litigation and enable complete justice being done to the parties; and (iii) that such subsequent event is brought to the notice of the court promptly and in accordance with the rules of procedural law so that the opposite party is not taken by surprise.

Such subsequent event may be one purely of law or founded on facts. In the former case, the court may take judicial notice of the event and before acting thereon put the parties on notice of how the change in law is going to affect the rights and obligations of the parties and modify or mould the course of litigation or the relief so as to bring it in conformity with the law. In the latter case, the party relying on the subsequent event, which consists of facts not beyond pale of controversy either as to their existence or in their impact, is expected to have resort to amendment of pleadings under Order 6 Rule 17 CPC. Such subsequent event, the Court may permit being introduced into the pleadings by way of amendment as it would be necessary to do so for the purpose of determining real questions in controversy between the parties."

4. We will test the maintainability and entertainability of the two applications in the light of the tests laid down as above.

5. The application dated 9.1.1990 filed before the first Appellate Court is a vague and bald application. It was alleged that "during the pendency of the suit" the landlord had given on tenancy to (1) Khan Jwellers; (ii) Tarak certain premises. No date of alleged creation of any of the two tenancies is given in the application so as to determine the date of subseq