Amendments to convert a suit for injunction to one for declaration and possession are permissible to avoid multiplicity of suits; however, the court may restrict the 'relation back' doctrine to protect rights like adverse possession accrued by the defendant in the interim.

JUDGMENT

The following Order of the Court was delivered : Leave granted.

The plaintiff-appellant filed a suit for issuance of permanent prohibitory injunction alleging the plaintiff-appellant’s possession over the suit property which is an agricultural land. The defendant in his written statement denied the plaint averments and pleaded that on the date of the institution of the suit he was in possession of the suit property and therefore the suit for injunction was liable to be dismissed. The suit was instituted in the year 1988.

In the year 1999, but before the commencement of the trial, the plaintiff moved an application under Order VI Rule 17 CPC seeking an amendment in the plaint. It is alleged in the application that in January 1989, that is, during the pendency of the suit, the defendant has forcibly dispossessed the plaintiff. On such averment the plaintiff sought for relief of declaration of title to the suit property and consequential relief of the delivery of possession. The suit was proposed to be valued accordingly along with payment of court fee. The prayer for amendment was opposed on behalf of the defendant-respondent submitting that the plaintiff was changing the cause of action through amendment which was not permissible and also on the ground that the defendant has perfected his title also by adverse possession over the suit property rendering the suit for recovery of possession barred by time and therefore a valuable right had accrued to the defendant which was sought to be taken away by the proposed amendment.

The Trial Court rejected the application for amendment. During the course of its order the Court observed that the appropriate course for the plaintiff was to bring a new suit. This order has been maintained by the High Court in revision. Although the plaintiff had sought for some more amendment so as to correct the description of the suit property; however the pan of the prayer for amendment was not later pressed by the plaintiff before the Court.

The short question arising for decision is whether it is permissible to convert through amendment a suit merely for permanent prohibitory injunction into a suit for declaration of title and recovery of possession.

It is true that the plaintiff on the averments made in the application for amendment proposes to introduce a cause of action which has arisen to the plaintiff during the pendency of the suit. According to the defendant the averments made in the application for amendment are factually incorrect and the defendant was not in possession of the property since before the institution of the suit itself.

In our opinion, the basic structure of the suit is not altered by the proposed amendment. What is sought to be changed is the nature of relief sought for by the plaintiff. In the opinion of the Trial Court it was one to the plaintiff to file a fresh suit and that is one of the reasons which has prevailed with the Trial Court and with the High Court in refusing the prayer for amendment and also in dismissing the plaintiffs revision. We fail to understand, if it is permissible for the plaintiff to file an independent suit, why the same relief which could be prayed for in a new suit cannot be permitted to be incorporated in the pending suit. In the facts and circumstances of the present case, allowing the amendment would curtail multiplicity of legal proceedings.

In Mst. Rukhmabai v. Lala Laxminarayan and Ors. , AIR (1960) 335, this Court has taken the view that where a suit was filed without seeking an appropriate relief, it is a well settled rule of practice not to dismiss the suit automatically but to allow the plaintiff to make necessary amendment if he seeks to do so.

Order 6 Rule 17 of the CPC confers jurisdiction on the Court to allow either party to alter or amend his pleadings at any stage of the proceedings and on such terms as may be just. Such amendments as are directed towards putting-form and seeking determination of the real questions in cont