The main legal point established in the judgment is the principle that a person can be added as a party under Order 1 Rule 10 of the Code of Civil Procedure if their presence is necessary to enable the court to effectively and completely adjudicate and settle all the questions involved in the suit.

Pradeep Nandrajog, J.

1. Having heard learned counsel for the parties, we find inchoate pleadings by the respondent bank in its application under Order 1 Rule 10 of the Code of Civil Procedure seeking impleadment of the writ petitioner.

2. Concededly the transaction was between ICICI Bank and Link Engineers Private Ltd. with co-borrower being Siddharth Sikka. Loan was sanctioned to purchase a ‘PILOTE FIAT DUCATO/MOTORHOME P 730 LACA’ (a motor vehicle).

3. It appears that the petitioner was to facilitate the purchase of vehicle i.e. to either act as an agent or render service for the import of the vehicle, and out of the loan amount sanctioned in sum of Rs. 80,40,000/- (Rupees Eighty Lacs Forty Thousand only), some amount was directly paid, of course to the account of the borrower and the co-borrower, to the writ petitioner.

4. There is a default, and it appears that the vehicle has changed hands. The borrower and the co-borrower are in default and the bank has proceeded to recover the same. Proceedings are pending before the Debts Recovery Tribunal. Subsequently an application was filed to implead the writ petitioner as a respondent and by a cryptic non-reasoned order without bringing out as to why writ petitioner was a necessary or a proper party, vide order dated September 15, 2014 the Debts Recovery Tribunal impleaded writ petitioner as a respondent which order has been upheld by the Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunal on March 20, 2015. Needless to state the said two orders are under challenge.

5. Order 1 Rule 10(2) of the Code of Civil Procedure reads as under:-

“(2) Court may strike out or add parties:

The Court may at any stage of the proceedings, either upon or without the application of either party, and on such terms as may appear to the Court to be just, order that the name of any party improperly joined, whether as plaintiff or defendant, or whose presence before the Court may be necessary in order to enable the Court effectually and completely to adjudicate upon and 'settle all the questions involved in the suit, be added'.”

6. A plain reading of the provision would show that a person would be a proper party whose presence before the Court is necessary in order to enable the Court to effectually and completely adjudicate and settle all the questions involved in the suit.

7. In the decision reported as AIR 1958 SC 886 Razia Begum v Anwar Begum the Supreme Court had laid down the following principles regarding the power of the Court to implead parties by virtue of Rule 10(2) of the Code of Civil Procedure :-

“20. As a result of these considerations, we have arrived at the following conclusions :-

(1) That the question of addition of parties under Rule 10 of Order 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, is generally not one of initial jurisdiction of the court, but of a judicial discretion which has to be exercised in view of all the facts and circumstances of a particular case; but in some cases, it may raise controversies as to the power of the court, in contradistinction to its inherent jurisdiction, or, in other words, of jurisdiction in the limited sense in which it is used in section 115 of the Code;

(2) That in a suit relating to property in order that a person may be added as a party, he should have a direct interest as distinguished from a commercial interest in the subject-matter of the litigation;

(3) Where the subject-matter of a litigation is a declaration as regards status or a legal character, the rule of present or direct interest may be relaxed in a suitable case where the court is of the opinion that by adding that party it would be in a better position effectually and completely to adjudicate upon the controversy;

(4) The cases contemplated in the last proposition have to be determined in accordance with the statutory provisions of sections 42 and 43 of the Specific Relief Act; ..............”

8. A reference may also be made to the decision of the Supreme Court reported as 1992 (2) SCC 224 Ramesh Hirachand Kun