IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA C.R. No.565 of 2007 BALKESHIYA DEVI Versus INDRASAN MANJHI & ANR ----------- 2 15/1/2009 Heard counsel for the petitioner. In the opinion of this Court the whole approach of the court below in rejecting the prayer of the petitioner for seeking amendment in the plaint suffers from an apparent jurisdictional error. The court below ought to have taken into consideration that in paragraph 8 of the original plaint there was definite and clear assertion with regard to the aforementioned Bhudan purcha issued under the Bhudan Act and the definite case of the plaintiff-petitioner was that such purcha was bad and illegal. Obviously, when this statement in paragraph 8 of the original plaint had been confronted to the plaintiff-petitioner then there should be some response to it in his written statement and consequently, if after closure of evidence of both the parties the court below had allowed additional 2 evidence of the defendants by taking that Bhudan Purcha on the record and in evidence, the plaintiff-petitioner had a right to rebut the same. Such liberty could not have been in any way done except by amending the plaint. In that view of the matter, it cannot be said that the amendment sought for by the plaintiff-petitioner was belated. Moreover, the suit being of the year 1987, the prospective amendments in Order-IV Rule 17 in the Code of Civil Procedure in the year 2002 w.e.f. 1.7.2002 cannot be made applicable sofar it relates to the suit in hand instituted in 1987. All these aspect of the matter however have not at all been considered by the Court below in the impugned order which would clearly amount to an apparent jurisdictional error. This Court, therefore in absence of the defendants-opposite parties would set aside the impugned order and remit the matter back to the court below to reconsider the whole issue of amendment in plaint in accordance with law and decide 3 the same expeditiously so that the suit of the year 1987 pending at the stage of argument gets also concluded at the earliest. With the aforesaid observations/directions this application is allowed only to the extent indicated above. (Mihir Kumar Jha, J.) Abhay Kumar