IMPORTANT POINT
Amendment of judgment, decree or order--Trial Court can allow amendment of plaint and conviction of decree/judgment of clerical and arithmetical mistake even when decision has obtained finality before High Court

K.Kannan, J.

1. The petition for amendment of the pleadings and decree after the disposal of the case was challenged by the plaintiff in revision petitions on the grounds; first by the amendment sought for therein was not merely a clerical mistake and the provisions of Section 152 were not applicable; second, the judgment ultimately decreeing the suit for specific performance was rendered by the High Court while dismissing a Regular Second Appeal filed at the instance of the defendant and therefore, the decree of the trial Court had be come merged with the decree of the High Court and any application, if at all, ought to have been filed only before the High Court.

2. The mistake as stated by the decree-holder as having been come about was with reference to a suit for specific performance in respect of 48 kanals of land situate in village Takhni, Tehsil and District, Hoshiarpur. The plaint also contained an alternative prayer for 48 kanals of land out of total land measuring 96 kanals. The total number of khasras were 12 comprising of 8 kanals each. The contention of the plaintiff was that the decree had been granted in respect of 48 kanals being the main relief which represented the 2/3rd shares out of 72 kanals. 2/3rd share which the plaintiff was claiming out of 72 kanals could not have been reckoned without reference to Khasra No.14 comprising of 8 kanals and the absence of reference to the said Khasra number was clearly a mistake. After the trial Court allowed the application on 24.01.2006, it is reported that subsequently the execution petition was also duly filed for execution of sale deed containing the altered description of property and also was taken possession of, after obtaining a registered sale deed. It was at this belated stage that the judgment debtor had filed the civil revision taking up the objections referred to above.

3. Dilating his arguments that the Court lacked inherent jurisdiction to pass an order, in view of the decision having obtained finality only before the High Court and therefore, it was High Court which could have entertained the petition and not the trial Court. He refers to decisions of this Court in Nishabar Singh v. Local Gurdwara Committee Manji Sahib, Karnal and another AIR 1986 P&H 402. and Kaka Singh and others v. Parkash Chand and others, 1980 PLJ 600. Yet another decision was a Bench ruling reported in Hakam Singh v. Jaswant Singh and others, AIR 1974 P&H 235 which laid down that even a dismissal of appeal in limine by the High Court could amount to a decree and an application for amendment of the decree would lie only to the High Court. He also refers to a decision of the Honble Supreme Court in State of Punjab v. Darshan Singh, 2003(2) Apex Court Judgments 606 (SC) that a correction goes into the merits of the case beyond the scope of Section 152 of CPC could not be permitted.

4. These decisions are countered by reference to judgment in Pritam Singh v. P. Didar Singh and another, 1976 RLR 586 where a Division Bench of this Court had ruled that language of Section 152 of CPC does not restrict the power of the Court to correct the clerical or accidental error and the powers mentioned in Section 151, 152 and 153 are vested in the Court to advance the cause of justice and to avoid the multiplicity of proceedings. It further held that a mistake in decree could be corrected by the Court under Section 152 CPC, even though it may have been copied from the pleadings of the parties themselves and that it is not even necessary in the correction of the decree to undertake the amendment of pleadings. The Honble Supreme Court held in Jayalakshmi Coelho v. Oswald Joseph Coelho, 2001(2) RCR(Civil) 515 : (2001)4 SCC 181 that the principle on which the provisions of Section 152 are based is that mistake by court ought not to cause a party to suffer and whatever be the intention of the court while passing a decree should be clearly reflected therein. The Honble Supreme Court laid down that p