The main legal point established in the judgment is that a subsequent purchaser of the subject matter of a Suit during its pendency has to be necessarily impleaded in the Suit, and the principle of lis pendens applies to such impleadment.

1. The petitioner is the first defendant in O.S. No.144 of 1999 on the file of the District Munsif at Alandur. The first respondent/Plaintiff has filed the said Suit for permanent injunction against the petitioner and the third respondent herein. Pending trial of the Suit, the first respondent filed an Application in I.A.No.2920 of 2006 under Order 1, Rule 10(ii) of Civil Procedure Code to implead the second respondent herein as the Second Plaintiff in the Suit.

2. In the affidavit filed by the first respondent, it is affirmed that he has sold the suit property in favour of the second respondent on 06.02.2004 and even though the sale was made during the pendency of the Suit, he has to be impleaded in the Suit.

3. The Petition was resisted by the petitioner in his counter by stating that the first respondent is an encroacher of the property belonging to him and the sale in favour of the second respondent is not at all valid and that there is no need to implead him as a party to the Suit.

4. The learned District Munsif, Alandur has allowed the Application by observing that even though the proposed party is a subsequent purchaser, he is a necessary party for deciding the issue and if the Petition is not allowed, it would result in multiplicity of proceedings and that the cause of action still survives.

5. Mr. P. Valliappan, learned counsel for the petitioner would argue that if anybody gets alienation pending trial of the Suit, the alienation is hit by the principles of lis pendens and he need not be made as a party to the suit since the result of the Suit will bind that party also. It is his further contention that the proposed party is neither a proper nor a necessary party and his presence is not at all essential for adjudication of rights of the parties in the Suit.

6. Conversely, Mrs. Anuradha Balaji, learned counsel for respondents I and 2 would contend that as per the settled principles of the Honble Supreme Court, even if a person purchases a property which is the subject matter of the Suit during pendency of the sale, he has necessarily to be impleaded in the Suit for complete adjudication in the case.

7. The learned counsel for the petitioner in support of his contention would place much reliance upon the decision of the Apex Court in Sanjay Verma v. Manik Roy and others, 2007 (2) CTC 562 (SC) : AIR 2007 SC 1332, wherein their Lordships have observed that a transferee pendente lite is bound by the decree just as much as he was a party to the Suit. The principle of lis pendens embodied in Section 52 of the T.P. Act being a principle of public policy, no question of good faith or bona fide arises. Their Lordships further proceeded to observe that the mere pendency of a Suit does not prevent one of the parties from dealing with the property constituting the subject-matter of the Suit and that it is a trite law that if a person is not a party to a Suit, the decree does not affect him unless the judgment is in rem and not in personem.

8. The learned counsel for the petitioner also garnered support from two decisions of this Court. In S. Sathyamoorthy and another v. Poojari alias Kaveri and others, 2002 (1) MLJ 814, this Court has observed that in a Suit for declaration complaining about the acts of the defendants, if the Petition is allowed to implead the proposed parties, it would be introducing a new cause of action and nature of the Suit itself will be changed and hence, it should not be permitted. In another decision reported in E. Somasekaran and another v. Kanchana and others, 2003 (3) MLJ 380, the learned Judge has observed that in an Application of a third party, a subsequent purchaser from the third defendant, who herself was a subsequent purchaser during lis pendens, is a classical case of how parties drag on the proceedings by transferring the suit property from one hand to another to see that the litigation does not come to an end. It is also held that it is settled law that any alienation subse