The main legal point established in the judgment is that applications for amendments, especially after the trial has commenced, must meet specific criteria and should not be an abuse of process of court.

JUDGMENT :

PUSHPA SATHYANARAYANA, J.

1. The defendants instituted this application seeking permission to file an additional written statement, which will have a bearing in the disposal of the suit.

2. The suit was filed by the respondent/plaintiff for recovery of money on various heads, including the liquidated damages, differential escalation between frozen indices, the extra expenditure incurred, final bill amount, etc.

3. The second applicant/second defendant has filed the written statement on behalf of the other applicants/first, third and fourth defendants in August, 2012. The said written statement itself was filed with a delay and the same was condoned by this Court, upon which, the written statement was taken on file on 18.09.2013. Thereafter, the matter was referred to mediation in vain and later issues were framed on 20.11.2015 and the parties were sent for trial.

4. The trial commenced by filing proof affidavit of the respondent/plaintiff on 02.02.2017, wherein, 142 documents were marked and it was posted for cross-examination of PW-1 by the applicants/defendants. The trial itself was said to be time-bound. As the time schedule could not be kept up, an extension was granted by this Court to complete the cross- examination of PW-1. It is stated that as PW-1 had to travel from Chandigarh every time, the cross-examination was fixed on a day-to-day basis from 11.09.12017 to 15.09.2017. Despite the same, it could not be completed for various reasons attributable to the applicants/defendants. Time was further extended by this court and PW-1 was partly cross- examined. While so, PW-1 died on 02.03.2018 and the respondent/plaintiff had decided to close their part of evidence, as they could not substitute a witness having knowledge about the facts of the case. Thereafter, the suit was posted for the evidence of the applicants/ defendants, at which point of time, the instant application is filed by the defendants for receiving the additional written statement.

5. The applicants/defendants stated in the affidavit filed in support of the above application that there was an earlier suit in C.S. No. 27 of 2000 filed by the respondent/plaintiff, wherein, certain claims were made by the respondent/plaintiff against the defendants. A compromise was arrived at between the parties and the same was recorded and the suit was dismissed as settled out of court. It is now stated by the applicants/defendants that while recording the said compromise, the respondent/plaintiff had given a categorical undertaking that it will not make any further claim. Notwithstanding the said undertaking given by the respondent/plaintiff herein at the time of withdrawing the earlier suit, the present suit has been filed, which according to the applicants/defendants, is for the very same claim. It is further stated by the applicants/defendants that at the time, the written statement was filed in the year 2013 in the present suit, the above facts were not readily available, because the earlier suit was withdrawn in the year 2005 and the present suit was filed on 16.08.2011. It is their case that the officials, in-charge of the previous suit, had retired and the facts about the earlier suit was only within their knowledge at the time of filing of the written statement.

6. The applicants/defendants went on to reiterate that the present suit is barred by Order 2, Rule 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure (in short “CPC”) and wanted to bring in the pleadings qua the previous suit by filing the additional written statement. It is also specifically stated that the respondent/plaintiff had not stated in the plaint about the filing of the earlier suit in C.S. No. 27 of 2000 and also about the withdrawal of the same. In this regard, the applicants/ defendants also wanted to mark certain documents, of which, PW-1 claimed ignorance. As already PW-1 was confronted with these documents, the respondent/plaintiff cannot have any serious objection for the receipt of those documents, whic