Leave to file additional written statement has to be granted liberally.

1. The present Civil Revision Petition has been filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, to set aside the fair and decreetal order in I.A. No.62 of 2005 in O.S. No.61 of 2003 on the file of the Principal District Munsif Court, Manamadurai.

2. The defendants in O.S. No.61 of 2003 is the revision petitioner.

3. The respondents herein tiled O.S. No.61 of 2003 against the revision petitioner for a permanent injunction restraining the defendant in the Suit from interfering with their peaceful possession and enjoyment of the Suit schedule property which was settled on them by their mother by a deed of settlement dated 10.5.2000.

4. The revision petitioner as defendant filed a written statement dated 19.4.2004 contending that the settlement deed is a created document and he purchased the suit property from one Ramalingam, who is the son-in-law of the mother of the plaintiffs.

5. Pending Suit the revision petitioner filed I.A. No.62 of 2005 to file additional written statement and the same was dismissed by the Trial Court on 24.6.2005 and aggrieved by the same the above Civil Revision Petition has been filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India.

6. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner and the learned counsel for the respondents. I have also gone through the documents and the judgments referred to by then in support of their submissions.

7. The learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that Courts should be liberal in receiving the additional written statement and taking an in-consistent plea in the additional written statement cannot be held against a party who wants to file additional written statement. He relied on the decisions of this Court reported in Subramanian and three others v. Javaraman, 1999 (3) CTC 52, and Sivagnanamoorthy v. M. Shanmugam, 2003 (3) CTC 705: 2003 (3) LW 617, in support of his submissions.

8. The learned counsel for the respondents submitted that Courts should not permit the party to take mutually destructive plea in the additional written statement and he placed his reliance on the decisions reported in Devanbu v. Sundara Raj and others, 2005 (1) CTC 563 and R.S. Nagarajan v. R.S. Gopalan and others, 2007 (1) CTC 586.

9. I have considered the rival submissions carefully with regards to facts and citations.

10. Order 8, Rule 9, C.P.C. deals with the filing of subsequent pleadings by a defendant in the Suit. Order 8, Rule 9 reads as under:

"No pleading subsequent to the written statement of a defendant other than by way of defence to a set-off or counter-claim shall be presented except by the leave of the Court and upon such terms as the Court thinks fit, but the Court may at any time require a written statement or additional written statement from any of the parties and fix a time for presenting the same."

11. A perusal of Rule 9, Order 8 makes it very clear that if the defendant wants to plea subsequently after filing written statement, he has to get the leave of the Court and if the Court thinks it fit to get subsequent pleadings it can always ask the parties to file a written statement within a time fixed by the Court.

12. In Subramanian and three others v. Jayaraman, 1999 (3) CTC 52, this Court held that the Court should have a lineant view for granting leave under Order 8, Rule 9 and the leave is to be rejected only when the defendant introduces an entirely a different case. The relevant portion of the judgment reads as under:

9. It is not the intention of the legislature that no pleading subsequent to the written statement should be allowed other than for reasons given therein. But the intention is that without the leave of the Court, no pleading subsequent to the written statement shall be presented. Hence, it goes without saying that the subsequent statement or additional statement could be filed only with the leave of the Court on such terms, as the Court thinks fit. The approach of law in permitting the Court to grant leave in such cases is posit