Amendments to Original Petitions in family law cases must not materially alter the essence of the claims; acceptance by affected parties is significant.

JUDGMENT Devan Ramachandran, J.

The petitioners challenge Ext.P13 order of the learned Family Court, Ernakulam, which allowed IA No.7/2025 in OP No.413/2018.

2. Going by the uncontested facts, the Original Petition was filed by the 1^st respondent herein, claiming her gold ornaments and some sums of money - which she alleged to have been entrusted to the petitioners and to the 2^nd respondent herein; and she then filed IA No.7/2025 to amend the Original Petition to incorporate a schedule of the gold ornaments, instead of the sum of Rs.5,50,000/-, inter alia, claimed. This has been allowed by the learned Family Court through Ext.P13 order; and the petitioners challenge it as being illegal and unlawful.

3. Before we enter into the merits of this matter, we must record upfront that the Original Petition was filed by the 1^st respondent, arraying the petitioners herein and the 2^nd respondent as the 1^st respondent therein. Pertinently, the 2^nd respondent herein is the husband of the 1^st respondent and the son of the petitioners herein. There is no reason offered as to why the petitioners have chosen to challenge the order, when the 2^nd respondent – their son, had not. This itself shows that the 2^nd respondent has accepted the amendment. We will come back to this issue in a short while.

4. Sri.Eldho Paul – learned counsel for the petitioners, argued that this is not the first time that the 1^st respondent has filed applications for amendment; and he pointed out to the orders of the learned Family Court, namely Exts.P7 and P9 in substantiation. He argued that the 1^st respondent herein had earlier filed IA No.4/2024, seeking certain amendments, which culminated in Ext.P7 order of the learned Family Court, dismissing it; against which, she approached this Court to obtain Ext.P8 judgment, directing the said Court to reconsider the matter. He showed us that the learned Family Court, thereafter, reconsidered the matter, issuing Ext.P9 order, which was, however, challenged before this Court, leading to Ext.P10 judgment of this Court, allowing her to withdraw the application itself. He says that she, thereafter, filed Ext.P11 application, which was also withdrawn, followed by Ext.P12, which has now been allowed through Ext.P13. He contended that, not merely is this a case where successive applications have been filed, but that what has now been done is to completely change the tenor of the Original Petition, since there are some admissions which the 1^st respondent had made which are now sought to be resiled from. He prayed that, consequently, this Original Petition be allowed.

5. Sri.V.V.Nandagopal Nambiar – learned counsel for the 1^st respondent, controverted the afore submissions, arguing that this Original Petition is maintainable when the 2^nd respondent has accepted the impugned order. He then proceeded to argue that Ext.P13 order does not change the characteristics of the Original Petition in any manner because, all that has been done is to incorporate the schedule of gold ornaments, which were allegedly purchased by the petitioners and the 2^nd respondent using Rs.5,50,000/-; whereas, in the Original Petition, she had claimed such sum in its specie. He contended that this does not change the nature of the Original Petition in any manner, particularly when his client had made no admissions therein, including in paragraph No.11, as has been asserted. He pointed out that the words “for that purpose” in the said paragraph have been sought to be amended to “it was heard that” because it is not affirmatively known to his client that her gold ornaments had been sold, but was an information that she gathered from the petitioners and the 2^nd respondent. He prayed that, for such reasons, this Original Petition be dismissed.

6. We ha