The main legal principle established in the judgment is the court's inherent powers, as provided in Order 18 of CPC, to ensure complete justice and meet the ends of justice, especially when the parties' interests, facts, issues, and evidence are similar in multiple cases.

JUDGMENT :

Dama Seshadri Naidu, J.

Facts:

Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. Heard finally by consent of the parties.

2. The petitioners 1 and 2 are brothers; petitioners 3 and 4 are also brothers, being the sons of the first petitioner. All these four persons have two partnership firms: the 5th petitioner and the 6th petitioner. That is, the petitioners 1 to 4 are the partners in both the firms. But the 5th petitioner firm is a party in the first two suits: R.A.E. Suit Nos. 566/955 of 2012 and 567/956 of 2012. And the 6th petitioner firm is a party to the remaining two suits: 568/957 of 2012 and 569/958 of 2012. The respondent Society, as the landlord, filed these four suits. All the respondents are the tenants.

3. That said, I must mention here how the Society views its tenants. It regards the 5th and the 6th petitioners as the tenants, and the other petitioners as mere partners of those two tenant-firms.

4. The landlord Society sued the petitioner-tenants for eviction on the grounds of permanent additions and alterations, wastage and damage, subletting and annoyance or nuisance. Once the issues were framed, the Society, first, in May 2015, filed its examination-in-chief in R.A.E. Suit No.569/958 of 2012. The Society wanted to examine its Secretary as P.W. 1. Before it could file the examinations-in-chief in other cases, the tenants applied under Exhibit No. 22 in R.A.E. Suit No. 566/955 of 2012. They have filed similar applications in the other three suits, too.

5. In these applications, the tenants took the plea that there should be common cross-examination in all four cases. According to them, once the Society knows the tenants' line of cross-examination in one suit, it would have its witness better prepared in other cases for the same questions or similar questions to be asked. The Society resisted these applications. Eventually, the trial Court, through a common order, dated 19th October 2018, dismissed all the four applications. That led the tenants to file these Writ Petitions, invoking Article 227 of the Constitution of India.

Submissions:

Petitioners':

6. Shri Mehul Shah, the learned counsel for the petitioner-tenants, has submitted that though the Society has filed four suits, practically the tenants are the same in all four suits, save the partnership firms. According to him, the Society's grounds of eviction and the tenants' defence are on the same lines in all the four cases. In this context, Shri Shah has taken me through the issues framed by the trial Court. He stressed that even the issues are the same in all the four suits. So the trial Court ought to have acceded, he stresses, to the tenants' request to have a common cross-examination. According to Shri Shah, it will cause no prejudice to the Society.

7. Shri Shah has submitted that the Society's Secretary filed the examinations-in-chief in all cases. He first filed the evidence-in-chief in one case, waited a few months, and then filed in all other cases, too. But soon after the Secretary's filing the evidence in one suit, the tenants applied for the trial Court's leave to cross-examine the witness compendiously in one go or at a stretch, covering all the four suits.

8. To sum up, Shri Shah maintains that the parties to the suits are the same, the suit properties are identical, the pleadings on either side, too, are identical, and the issues do not differ, either. So it is desirable, he urges, for the tenants to have a common cross-examination. Shri Shah has also submitted that the order impugned is cryptic and devoid of any reasoning. Thus, he wants this Court to set aside the impugned order and allow the tenants to cross-examine PW1 compendiously covering all the four suits. Respondent's:

9. In response, Shri S.C. Naidu, the learned counsel for the Society, has submitted that this Court may first appreciate that the Writ Petition is under Article 227 of Constitution of India. And this Court would be averse to interfering with the trial Court's order of discretion u