The court's decision emphasized the importance of not allowing subsequent attempts to reintroduce amendments that resiled from admissions made in the original written statement and the consequences of misusing the liberty given by a previous judgment.

ORDER :

1. Leave granted.

2. The present appeal is a very unfortunate proceeding which has not taken off the ground. Thanks to litigation which has twice come up to this Court.

3. A Partition Suit of 1978 has only reached the stage of issues thus far. A written statement to the aforesaid Suit had been filed by Respondent No.1 and his mother on 16.08.1979 in which certain admissions as to Mahabir Prosad Kajaria being separated from his father and carrying on his own independent business were made. In addition, the said written statement also referred to and relied upon an Award of 1956 which was stated to be binding on all the representatives of the father, Motilal Kajaria, and that the said Award was registered and fully implemented.

4. In an attempt to resile from the aforesaid statements made in the original written statement, an application for amendment was moved sometime in the year 2004. This application was dismissed by the learned Single Judge. However, by a judgment dated 09.09.2010, the Division Bench of the High Court allowed the aforesaid amendment application. By this Court's judgment dated 18.09.2015 [Ram Niranjan Kajaria vs. Sheo Prakash Kajaria and Ors., reported in (2015) 10 SCC 203], this Court agreed with the learned Single Judge in stating that admissions made in the written statement cannot be resiled from, but gave an opportunity to Defendant Nos. 5 and 12 to explain/clarify admissions made in the written statement.

5. It is important to note that the amendment that was asked for was disallowed by this Court. In the second round of litigation, an amended written statement was filed on 24.08.2016 by Respondent No.1 in which it was stated as under:

“15. The facts stated in paragraph 1 above and various sub-paragraphs thereunder are not factually correct and the same was made on the basis of misconception of fact and disclosure of subsequent events. In order to withdraw the said statements made in paragraph 1 above and in sub-paragraphs thereunder, an application for amendment of the written statement was made by this defendant alongwith the original defendant No.12 who has since been expired. Both the Hon'ble Court has allowed the amendment but in the Special Leave Petition filed against the said order of this Hon'ble Court, the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India was pleased to disallow the said amendment as granted by the Division Bench of this Hon'ble Court and, inter alia, was pleased to permit this defendant to explain/clarify the dispute. Admission in the written statement by an order dated 18th September, 2015, this defendant therefore, on the basis of the said permission of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India, is clarifying and/or explaining that as to why and in what circumstances the said admission was made by this defendant alongwith the original defendant No.12, since expired, in the written statement filed in the above suit.”

The said respondent then went on to add in the second amended writ petition substantially the same pleas as that were taken in the amended written statement in the first round, which this Court stated could not be made inasmuch as resiling from admissions were clearly not permitted. The learned Single Judge, in the second round of litigation, has allowed the aforesaid written statement and by the impugned judgment of 09.08.2016, the view taken by the Single Judge was upheld.

6. Mr. Vijay Hansaria, learned senior advocate, has argued before us that the liberty given by this Court has been grossly misused by the respondents inasmuch as they sought to reintroduce in the second amendment application substantially everything that was already rejected in the first. He has given us a chart in which he has set out what was disallowed in the first amendment and what has since been allowed by the impugned judgment in the second amendment application.

7. On a perusal of the aforesaid Chart, we are satisfied that Respondent No.1 has, in fact, misused the liberty given by this Court and has sub