ORDER

1. Bearing in mind the disclosures made and since sufficient cause has been shown for absence of counsel, this application for restoration shall stand allowed. The writ petition shall consequently stand restored to the record.

2. Application stands disposed of.

W.P.(C) 2281/2019

3. The challenge in the present writ petition is to the order of 13 February 2019 in terms of which the Estate Officer ceased of proceedings initiated by the respondents referable to Section 4 of the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorized Occupants) Act, 1971 [Act] has proceeded to reject applications made by the petitioners here for amendment and for the issuance of interrogatories.

4. These proceedings before the Estate Officer were instituted in 2001. The proceedings emanated consequent to the cancellation of the lease granted in favour of the petitioner by the respondents on 11 January 2001. That order was challenged by the petitioner here by way of W.P. (C) No.3552/2014. Ultimately on 13 September 2018, the said writ petition was withdrawn on the statement of the petitioner that the writ petition was not being pursued subject to rights being reserved to urge all grounds in challenge to the proceedings as drawn by the Estate Officer before the authority itself. According that liberty, the Court proceeded to dismiss the writ petition. It is only thereafter that the application under Order VI Rule 17 and Order XI of Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 [cpc] came to be preferred.

5. The Estate Officer has while rejecting those applications observed that the application for amendment was not maintainable since it has come to be filed after the matter had been posted for evidence. The application for issuance of interrogatories met with a similar fate with the Estate Officer observing that the same was not in the format prescribed under the CPC and that in any case, the application lacked bonafide and appeared to have been made only to delay the disposal of the main case.

6. Assailing the aforesaid order, learned counsel contends that by way of an amendment, the petitioners sought inclusion of various facts which would constitute the backdrop of a jurisdictional challenge to the drawal of proceedings under the Act. Learned counsel submits that a liberal approach must be brought to bear when it comes to deciding issues of amendment of pleadings. Sustenance is sought to be drawn in this respect from the observations as appearing in the judgment of the Court rendered in Time Warner Entertainment Company, LP. Vs. A.K. Das & Ors; 2002 SCC OnLine Del 1421 and more particularly the following paragraphs therefrom which read thus:

"8. An amendment may be allowed at any stage of the proceedings. An amendment application can be entertained even after the close of the case for judgment and before judgment is pronounced. It is also a settled law that all amendments of the pleadings should be allowed which are necessary for determination of the real questions in controversy between the parties in the suit provided the proposed amendment does not alter or substitute a new cause of action. The proposed amendments should not cause such prejudice to the other side which cannot be compensated by costs. No amendment should be allowed which amounts to or relates in defeating a legal right accruing to the opposite party on account of lapse of time. Hypertechnical approach should not be adopted and instead a liberal approach should be the general rule. A prayer for amendment can be rejected if the same is not bona fide. 9. In view of the settled position of law, to my mind, the amendments are necessary for the purpose of determining the real questions in controversy and would not cause any prejudice to the defendants if the same are allowed. The amendments as sought for in para 5 of the application have been necessitated because of the introduction of the HBO channel in India which was not within the knowledge of the plaintiff when the suit was filed."

7. Insofar as the rigours im