Court No. - 68

Case :- WRIT - B No. - 2972 of 2019

Petitioner :- Ram Bharose And Another

Respondent :- Deputy Director Of Condolidation And 5 Others

Counsel for Petitioner :- Ram Raj Prajapati

Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.

Hon'ble Saumitra Dayal Singh,J.

1. Heard Mr. Ram Raj Prajapati, learned counsel for the

petitioners and learned Standing Counsel.

2. Challenge raised in the present petition is to the order dated

8.6.2018 passed by Settlement Officer of Consolidation,

Hamirpur in appeal no. 17/76 whereby he had allowed the

amendment application moved by the private respondent no.3

and others. That order has been confirmed in revision by

Deputy Director of Consolidation, Hamirpur, vide his order

dated 18.10.2019.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner would submit that the

amendment application had been wrongly allowed, inasmuch

as, such application had been filed in the appeal pending before

Settlement Officer of Consolidation.

4. Relying on J. Samuel and others Vs. Gattu Mahesh and

others, 2012 (2) AWC 1854 (SC) and Zamil Ahmad Vs.

Mohd. Zeeshan, 2011 (4) AWC 3802 (decision of learned

single Judge of this Court), it has been submitted that the

amendment could not be allowed at such belated stage.

5. On the other hand, learned Standing Counsel would submit

that there is no prejudice caused to the present petitioners and,

therefore, writ petition deserves to be dismissed.

6. By order dated 3.8.2015, Consolidation Officer rejected the

objections filed by one Ayodhya, son of Gokul, and determined

the shares of Raj Kunwar, Siya Dulari, Ayodhya and Jagannath.

Since the order dated 3.8.2015 was apparently ex parte against

Maheshwari Deen and others, they filed restoration application

which came to be decided by order dated 24.6.2017. Thereafter,

the said Maheshwari Deen, Anirudh and Smt. Phoola Rani filed

an appeal under Section 11 of U.P. Act No. 5 of 1954 before the

Settlement Officer of Consolidation, Hamirpur. It is in this

appeal that the objection appears to have been filed by the

present petitioners that the same cannot be heard since

challenge had not been made to the order dated 26.4.2017 and

the appeal had been confined to the order dated 3.8.2015.

7. Upon such argument being advanced, it appears that the

private respondents then filed an amendment application on

11.5.2018. It is this amendment application which have been

allowed and the revision there against rejected, which has given

rise to the present petition.

8. Having heard learned counsel for the parties and having

perused the record, in the first place, in principle, it cannot be

denied that the learned court below has the power to allow an

amendment at any stage before judgement. As to the precedent

being relied upon by learned counsel for the petitioners, it does

not lay down rule of law that wherever the application for

amendment may be filed after conclusion of the hearing, that

amendment application must be rejected. Acceptance of that

argument would completely eclipse the discretion of the Court

and hence run contrary to the plain language of the Order VI

Rule 17 C.P.C.

9. In the decision of the Supreme Court in J. Samuel and

others Vs. Gattu Mahesh and others (supra) itself, it has

been held as below:

"No doubt, Rule 17 confers power on the Court to amend the pleadings at

any stage of the proceedings. However, proviso restricts that power once

the trial commenced. Unless the Court satisfies that there is a reasonable

cause for allowing the amendment normally the Court has to reject such

request."

10. Insofar as the present case is concerned, though the order of

the Settlement Officer of Consolidation is silent as to the

reasons for allowing the amendment, the revisional court has

delved and found that the appeal had been filed, both with

reference to the order dated 3.8.2015 and the order dated

26.4.2017, though at some places, reference of the order dated

26.4.2017 had not been made, includ