A court has the discretion to allow or disallow an amendment of the pleadings, but this discretion must be exercised judicially and in accordance with the principles laid down by the Supreme Court and other Courts.

1. In January, 1968, one Bhanwar Singh (predecessor-in-interest of respondents Nos. 1 to 1-C) is stated to have entered into an agreement with Rama Nand plaintiff-petitioner for selling a piece of his land to the plaintiff for a consideration out of which Rs. 1,900.00 are alleged to have been paid to him by the plaintiff. Instead of selling that piece of land to the plaintiff, Bhanwar Singh transferred the same along with his other land in favour of Mst. Dodi respondent by a registered sale-deed dated June 12, 1968, for Rs. 17,500. One of the terms of the alleged agreement for sale in favour of the plaintiff-petitioner was that in case of failure of Bhanwar Singh to sell the contracted piece of two kanals of land to him within the stipulated period the plaintiff would be entitled to have a sale of double the land, i. e., four kanals for Rs. 2,400.00. This led to the filing of the plaintiff s suit for specific performance of the agreement to sell in August, 1968. The suit was decreed ex parte in 1969. The application of the defendant, for setting aside the ex parte decreee under Or. 9, R. 13 of the Code of Civil Procedure having been dismissed on August 10, 1973, the defendant went up in appeal against that order under Order 43, Rule 1 of the Code which appeal was allowed on 19.07.1976, and ex parte decree was set aside on that day. Immediately on the suit going back to the trial Court issues were framed out of the pleadings of the parties and issue No. 4 was "whether the plaintiff has been ready and willing to perform his part of the contract? (Opp)"

2. It appears that the plaintiff realised immediately that though certain averments of fact had been made by him in a part of the plaint, which the plaintiff insists even now amount to a plea of the plaintiff being ready and willing to perform his part of the contract, no such specific averment had been made in the plaint. It was in these circumstances that in August, 1976, within a month of the setting aside of the decree and immediately after the framing of the issues the plaintiff made an application under O. 6, R. 17 of the Code for leave to amend the plaint so as to add paragraph 5A therein for specifically pleading that the plaintiff has been ready and willing and is still ready and willing to perform his part of the contract and that the breach of the contract had been committed by the defendant. The application was contested by the defendant (the vendor respondent). After a detailed discussion of the law on the subject, the Court of Shri S. N. Chadha, Subordinate Judge First Class, Narnaul, dismissed the application of the plaintiff by his order dated 7.10.1976. This is a petition for revision of that order.

3. The learned Subordinate Judge referred in some detail to the principles laid down in various judgments for allowing or declining to allow amendment of pleadings. As I read the order under revision, it appears that on a consideration of those principles the learned Subordinate Judge would normally have been inclined to allow the application, but two considerations weighed with him in declining the request of the plaintiff. Besides referring to the form of the plaint for a suit for specific performance (paragraph 3 of Form No. 47 in the Code) wherein such a plea is necessary, the learned Subordinate Judge correctly found that no suit for specific performance of an agreement to sell is allowed by Sec. 16 of the Specific Relief Act to be decreed unless there is an averment and proof of the plaintiff having been ready and willing and being still ready and willing on the date of the suit to perform his part of the contract. The learned Subordinate Judge held that Sec. 16(c) leaves no room for doubt that the suit for specific performance has to fail if the plaintiff fails to plead and prove his readiness and willingness to perform his part of the contract and that inasmuch as the object of the plaintiff for amending the plaint was to make that averment on the assum