Citation: Haramani Sahoo & Ors. v. Lalita Nayak & Ors., 2026 INSC 1112
After the trial has begun, an amendment can be allowed under Order VI Rule 17 CPC only if the party shows that, despite due diligence, it could not have raised the matter earlier. A later discovery of a document or decree affecting the very property in dispute, which the plaintiff was not a party to, can satisfy this test, and the amendment is allowed if it does not change the nature of the suit. Delay alone is not a ground to refuse it. Where the plea of limitation is arguable and turns on disputed facts, such as the date of knowledge, the amendment can be allowed and limitation left for the trial court, with the opponent’s prejudice met by costs and the chance to file an additional written statement.
The Supreme Court has allowed a plaintiff’s heirs to amend their plaint in a 17-year-old Cuttack land suit to challenge a compromise decree they say they never knew about, even though the application came after the trial had begun. It held that the delay can be dealt with by costs, and that questions on limitation can be left to the trial court.
Rabindranath Sahoo sued in 2009 for a declaration of title and possession over about 0.12 acre of land that he bought through registered sale deeds in 1971 and 1978, and later bought and sold again by different defendants. After the suit began, he amended it several times. Later, a search at the Tahsildar’s office revealed a compromise decree in another suit (T.S. No. 105 of 1998), to which he was not a party, which had given part of the disputed plot to one of the defendants. He had obtained certified copies of the plaint and decree on 22 June 2020 and asked to add facts about this decree and to have it declared null and void. After he died, the trial court rejected this amendment in September 2022 and the Orissa High Court refused to interfere in April 2023, and his heirs appealed. The respondents said that the plaintiff was prolonging the case through repeated amendments, that a fresh suit on the amended claim would be time-barred, and that Order XXIII Rule 3A CPC bars a separate challenge to a compromise decree. Justices B.V. Nagarathna and R. Mahadevan allowed the appeal. They held that the “due diligence” test under the proviso to Order VI Rule 17 CPC was met for now, because the plaintiff learned of the compromise decree only later, was not a party to it, and the defendants had not disclosed their source of title. The amendment did not change the nature of the suit, since it concerned a decree affecting part of the same disputed property, and it would avoid splitting the title dispute into separate cases with the risk of conflicting findings. The date on which he got knowledge of the decree is disputed, so limitation is arguable and is left open, along with the Order XXIII Rule 3A objection. The court allowed the amendment on payment of Rs 25,000 as costs within two weeks, and gave the defendants the right to file additional written statements.
The court did not decide whether the compromise decree is valid or binding, whether the challenge is time-barred or barred by Order XXIII Rule 3A, or who owns the land, and left all of this to the trial court.
Leave a Reply