The court ruled that amending pleadings in commercial suits must comply with stricter standards under the CPC as amended by the Commercial Courts Act to ensure expeditious dispute resolution.

P.C.:

1. In the light of the rival submissions, the question that arises for consideration in this application filed under Order VI Rule 17 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (hereinafter referred to as the CPC for the sake of brevity) for amendment of plaint in a commercial suit, is that when such a proposed amendment seeks to place on record documents, whether the rigors of Order XI of the CPC, as amended by the Commercial Courts Act, 2015, would apply and to what extent. Considering the specific mandate of the amended Order XI of the CPC applicable to Commercial Courts, whether the stringent requirements specified under the same can be a factor for consideration when the proposed amendment of the plaint in a commercial suit seeks to place on record documents that were admittedly in the power, custody, control or possession of the Plaintiff at the time of filing of the suit.

2. The Plaintiff in the present case filed the present suit, which is admittedly a commercial suit, seeking specific performance of a development agreement read with a deed of addenda executed between the parties. The controversy revolves around the entitlement of the plaintiff to certain parking spaces in the property, that are subject matter of the development agreement. The Applicant /Plaintiff is seeking amendment of the plaint in term of Exhibits “J” and “S” annexed to the application. As regards proposed amendment as per Exhibit “J”, the Plaintiff proposes to delete Defendant No. 4 and to add in his place Defendant Nos. 4a and 4b. The Plaintiff further seeks to add Defendant Nos. 9 and 10 after Defendant No. 8, also seeking amendment in the pleadings to justify such deletion and addition of Defendants. There is no serious dispute raised on behalf of the Defendants with respect to the proposed amendment as per Exhibit “J”.

3. The real dispute pertains to the amendment as proposed under Exhibit “S” annexed to the application. As per the original Exhibit “S”, the Plaintiff sought addition of sub paragraph (y) after paragraph no. 5(x) in the original plaint and also sought addition of prayer clause a-1, seeking further specific relief in respect of the car parking spaces.

4. It is relevant that during the course of hearing of the present application, on 19^th June, 2023, this Court expressed its opinion about not being inclined to allow amendment of the plaint and the prayer clause as proposed vide Exhibit “S” on behalf of the Plaintiff. In this situation, the learned Senior Counsel appearing for the Plaintiff, on instructions, submitted that an opportunity may be granted to substitute Exhibit “S” to place before this Court modified proposal to add sub paragraph No. (y) after paragraph no. 5(x) of the plaint. Accordingly, when this application came up for hearing, the modified proposed amendment as per substituted Exhibit “S” was pressed into service on behalf of Plaintiff. As per the modified proposal, sub paragraph No. (y) after paragraph no. 5(x) of the plaint was truncated and the proposed prayer clause (a-1) was completely deleted. In other words, the modified proposed amendment to the plaint stood reduced to a proposal to place on record two documents as Exhibits “M-1” and “M-2”, with the contents of the proposed sub paragraph paraphrasing the contents of the said documents proposed to be placed on record.

5. The document proposed to be placed on record at Exhibit “M-1” is a letter dated 30^th August, 2019 addressed by the Defendant No. 1 to the Plaintiff and the document sought to be placed on record at Exhibit “M-2” is a chart prepared by the Plaintiff as regards