The law favors permission to amend pleadings within certain parameters, and amendments that clarify factual positions without changing the nature of the suit or introducing a fresh cause of action are generally permitted.

JUDGMENT :

T.S. Thakur, J.—

1.In this suit, the plaintiff prays for a decree of permanent injunction restraining the defendants, their proprietors, partners, directors etc. from manufacturing, using, selling, soliciting, exporting, displaying and advertising the goods manufactured by them including fashion apparels, accessories and allied/cognate goods under the trade mark Voi or any other trade name or trade mark identical with or deceptively similar to the plaintiffs trade mark and label V05 and VO5 Along with the letters ALBERTO, VO or from doing any other acts amounting to or likely to infringe plaintiffs registered Trade Mark ALBERTO V05 or passing off and violating the plaintiffs rights in the plaintiffs trade mark and label.

2. The plaintiff has now filed the present application under Order VI Rule 17 of the CPC for amendment of plaint. The proposed amendment is limited to the deletion of 11 lines of para 3 of the plaint which read as under:-

"In the year 1955 the plaintiff company honestly, coined, conceived, adopted and started using the Trade Marks V05 and V05 Along with the word ALBERTO (being the plaintiff company's first name) which is written in small letters above the letter V and both respectively bearing artistic features [hereinafter referred to as the said Trade Mark/Label and a term that includes the Trade Mark V05 individually as well as Along with the word ALBERTO and their respective artistic features]. True representations of the said Trade Mark/Label are annexed herewith as ANNEXURE P-l."

The above are then sought to be substituted by the following:-

"In the year 1955, the plaintiff company honestly, coined, conceived, adopted and started using the Trade Mark VO5 and V05 Along with letters ALBERTO (being the plaintiff company's first name) [referred to as the said Trade Marks]. With the passage of time the plaintiff has been making changes in the artistic features in the said Trade Marks (collectively referred to as the said Trade Mark/label and a term that includes the Trade Mark VO5 individually as well as Along with the word ALBERTO and the respective artistic features]. However, the said words/marks V05 and V05 Along with the letter ALBERTO have remained and only difference being in the artistic features). A representation of the said Trade Mark/label is annexed as ANNEXURE P-l,"

3. It was argued by learned counsel for the plaintiff that the proposed amendment simply explains and clarifies the position regarding the conception, adoption and use of trade mark V05 and V05 along with the letter ALBERTO. In particular, the proposed amendment clarifies that the plaintiff had, with passage of time, made changes in the artistic features in the said trade marks individually as also Along with word ALBERTO. The amendment is, in that view, simply clarifying the true position without introducing any fresh cause of action or changing in the nature of the suit. Reliance in support was placed by learned counsel upon the judgment of the Supreme Court in Punjab National Bank Vs. Indian Bank and Another, AIR 2003 SC 2284 and that of this Court in Chitralekha Bukshi v. Abhay Sapru and Anr. 2003 II AD (Delhi) 501 and Saif-ul-Islam Company, L.P. v. Roshan Lal Arora and Anr. 2003 II AD (Delhi) 426.

4. On behalf of the defendants, it was, on the other hand, argued that the proposed amendment is intended to meet a substantive defense which the defendants had raised in the written statement on the basis whereof the plaintiffs suit could be dismissed at the threshold for non-disclosure and suppression of the true facts. No such amendment would, according to the learned counsel, be allowed by the court. It was submitted that the assertion made in the plaint originally was misleading and the proposed amendment seeks only to remedy that defect by introducing what the plaintiff ought to have stated in the first place.

5. The suit is at its threshold. Issues have not yet been framed, though written statement has already been filed by