IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of Decision: July 09, 2025 Balbir Singh Deceased through his LRs and another ...Petitioners Versus Swaran Dass deceased through LRs and others ...Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MRS. JUSTICE ARCHANA PURI Present: Mr.G.S.Sirphikhi, Advocates for the petitioners.

Mr.Harminder Singh, Advocate for respondents No.1 (I) to (iv) & (viii) and 2.

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ARCHANA PURI, J.

Challenge in the present revision petition is to the order dated

16.01.2018 passed by learned Rent Controller, whereby, an application under Order 6 Rule 17 and Section 151 CPC, for seeking amendment of the petition was dismissed.

The essential facts having bearing on the application for amendment of the petition, are as follows:-

That, initially, the petitioners-landlords had filed an ejectment petition against Swaran Dass, Ashok Kumar and Ramesh Kumar, vis-a-vis the shop marked as A B C D, as shown in the site plan and bounded as detailed in the headnote of the application, copy whereof is Annexure P-1. However, in pursuance of notice issued, the respondents-tenants did not make appearance and as such, they were proceeded against ex-parte. Thereupon, the petitioners-landlords had led evidence Learned Court had concluded about the petitioners, to have failed to prove the relationship of landlord and tenant between them and thus, had dismissed the ex-parte ejectment petition.

Being aggrieved, the petitioners-landlords had filed an appeal and during the pendency of the appeal, they also filed an application for additional evidence, to tender into evidence, copies of the documents, relating to the ejectment petition filed qua other tenant namely Ravinder Kumar s/o Baldev Raj, which was allowed. Thereupon, learned Appellate Court, vide judgment dated 16.09.2016, had dealt both with the application for additional evidence as well as the appeal and thereafter, allowed the application and had set aside the impugned judgment and remanded back the case to the Rent Controller, for fresh decision on merits, in the light of the documentary evidence to be produced by the appellants-petitioners (landlords) and also ordered that the respondents-tenants shall be permitted to produce the evidence, to rebut additional evidence. Upon remand of the case, it was also observed by the Court that the respondents will be enabled to file their written statement.

In view of the such order passed by the Appellate Court, the case was remanded back to the Rent Controller. When the case was pending before the Rent Controller, an application under Order 6 Rule 17 CPC was filed at the instance of the petitioners-landlords, for seeking amendment of the ejectment petition. Vide proposed amendment, the petitioners-landlords wanted to assert about the shop in question, to be part and parcel of Khasra No.55R/12/1, situated at village Batala Garbi, Tehsil Batala and also wanted to make addition of paragraph No.3-A, in the petition, already filed, which is detailed in the application itself, wherein, the background of the property initially owned by Harbhajan Singh and Gurcharan Singh and having sold the same further to Ashwani Kumar and then Ashwani Kumar etc. had sold the shop to the present petitioners, who are the then owners of the shop in question of Khasra No.55R/12/1.

However, in reply, the respondents-tenants resisted the claim.

It was asserted that the ejectment petition was filed way back in the year 2003 and then the respondents were proceeded against ex-parte, but however, the ex-parte petition was dismissed by the Rent Controller. An appeal was filed, but however, luckily, the notice was got issued about the appeal to them, as a result whereof, they had joined the proceedings and the Appellate Court had remanded back the case to the Rent Controller, with a direction to take the written statement of the respondents and to decide the matter afresh.

Also, in the reply, much emphasis was laid upon the application having been filed after a period of 14 years