Amendment may be allowed even it is belated.

ORDER:- Kannan, the petitioner, was involved in a road accident in which he was knocked down by a motor vehicle belonging to the Southern Roadways. The accident happened on 21-4-1976. Kannan sustained injuries as a result of the accident. The injuries were as follows - one tooth was broken and other teeth began shaking. There was a head injury. There was a fracture of the head bone. There were other multiple injuries in the body. The petitioner filed a petition under Section 110-A of the Motor Vehicles Act, before the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal, complaining that the lorry belonging to the Southern Roadways was driven in a rash and negligent manner resulting in his being knocked down and sustaining multiple injuries. He claimed in this petition an aggregate compensation of Rs.8,000 under various heads. In his petition he described in detail the nature of the several injuries which he sustained in the accident. However, when it came to asking for compensation under named heads of claim, he did not make any particular claim as compensation for any permanent disability in his body as a result of the accident.

2. The claim of compensation in the manner aforesaid was resisted by the Southern Roadways. At the enquiry, the claimant Kannan called a medical practitioner as a witness to testify to the nature and gravity of the injuries sustained by him in the accident and the extent of the disability caused thereby. The doctor in his evidence said that as a result of the accident, the petitioner's eye-sight had been permanently impaired. Apart from the doctor's evidence, the petitioner himself was passing through bouts of giddiness and frequent headaches. The petitioner, accordingly, filed an application M.P. 1332 of 1978 before the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal, Madras, for leave to amend the pleadings in his petition and to raise the total claim of compensation put forward by him in his petition from Rs.8,000 to Rs.49,000. The proposed amendments involved the substitution of Rs.20,000 for the original claim of Rs.25,000 (sic) as and towards compensation for permanent disability.

3. The application for amendment was filed before the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal on 3-8-1973, almost at the close of the enquiry into the claim petition. This application for amendment was opposed by the Southern Roadways on the principal ground that it was belated and had been obviously mooted by the petitioner only on the basis of the evidence given at the time of enquiry by the doctor. It was further submitted that the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal had no jurisdiction to entertain an application for amendment of pleadings.

4. The Tribunal held that the amendment of pleadings was barred by limitation and dismissed the application. The petitioner has brought this civil revision petition against the order of the Tribunal. The learned counsel for the Southern Roadways, however, supported the order under revision on the grounds relied on by the Tribunal.

5. It seems to me that the Tribunal was in error in considering the prayer for amendment of the pleadings from the point of view of limitation. It is well settled that bar of limitation does not provide a ground for rejecting in limine an application for amendment of pleadings. The power to grant leave for amendment of pleadings is a matter of discretion for the court and the question of limitation can be only one of the relevant considerations. By itself it cannot be decisive, and for good cause shown an amendment may be ordered even if the amendment

were belated.

6. Even otherwise, while Sec.110-A provides on the one hand, that no application for compensation shall be entertained unless it is made within 6 months from the date of the occurrence of the accident, its proviso expressly empowers the Claims Tribunal to entertain any application after the expiry of 6 months, if it is satisfied that the applicant was prevented by sufficient cause from making the application within the time limited. Th