Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Civil Revisional Jurisdiction
Appellate Side
The Hon’ble Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya
C.O. No. 1010 of 2019
Amit Mines Private Limited
Vs.
Maithan Alloys Limited and another
For the petitioner : Mr. Saptangshu Basu,
Mr. Srijib Chakraborty,
Mr. Aditya Mondal
For the opposite party no.1 : Mr. Probal Kumar Mukherjee,
Mr. Suhrid Sur
Hearing concluded on : 19.03.2019
Judgment on : 03.04.2019
Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya, J.:‐
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1. The defendant in a suit for recovery of money has preferred the instant revisional
for amendment of an application for setting aside an accounts commissioner’s report
filed by the petitioner. Being aggrieved by the partial refusal of the other part of the
amendment, the present revisional application has been filed.
2. In the said suit, the plaintiff/opposite party no. 1 prayed inter alia for appointment of
an accounts commissioner for settling the accounts between the parties and for
passing a final decree for recovery of money in terms of the report passed by the
accounts commissioner.
3. The petitioner entered appearance and filed a written statement, thereby denying the
material allegations made in the plaint, and also took out a counter claim for an
amount of Rs.6,73,52,364/‐. The said suit was decreed in preliminary form on
November 5, 2014. The defendant/petitioner preferred a first appeal, bearing FAT
No.607 of 2014, against the said preliminary decree, along with an application for
stay, on December 23, 2014.
4. On January 13, 2015, a division bench of this court disposed of the application for
stay by directing that pendency of the appeal shall not prevent the accounts
commissioner to proceed with his work and, upon completion of the same, to file his
report, but that the learned trial Judge shall not pass the final decree without the
leave of this court.
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5. On January 29, 2015, the division bench passed a further order which recorded that
the accounts commissioner had filed a report in the meantime, where the
commissioner had come to the conclusion that the defendant/petitioner should pay
to the plaintiff Rs.5,03,61,544/‐. The division bench directed that the trial Judge
should not pass the final decree for a period of four weeks from then. It was further
directed that if the defendant deposits, without prejudice to the rights and
contentions of the parties, Rs.4,00,00,000/‐ with the trial court, the interim order
should continue till the disposal of the application. In default, it was observed, the
interim order of stay would stand automatically vacated and the trial Judge would
be free to pass the final decree.
6. By a subsequent order dated February 12, 2015, the division bench recorded that
admittedly the amount of Rs.4,00,00,000/‐ was not deposited; on the contrary, by
consent of the parties, the trial court had accepted the report of the accounts
commissioner. In such view of the matter, the division bench modified the interim
orders dated January 13, 2015 and January 29, 2015 and granted liberty to the trial
Judge to pass the final decree on the basis of the report of the accounts commissioner.
It was further clarified that the said order would not prevent the trial Judge to
dispose of the application stated to have been filed by the defendant before the trial
court. No opinion was expressed on the merits of such application.
7. It is relevant to mention that the said accounts commissioner’s report had been
accepted by the trial court on February 3, 2015, allegedly on consent of the parties.
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8. On February 4, 2015, an application was filed by the defendant/petitioner under
Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure (hereinafter referred to as the “CPC”) for
setting aside the ex parte commissioner’s report.
9. On February 16, 2015, another application was filed by the defendant/petitioner for
recall of the order dated February 3, 2015, whereby the commissioner’s report was
accepted, on the ground that no consent had been given on behalf of the defendant
for acceptance of such report.
10. On February 19, 2015, the trial court allowed the recall application, thereby recalling
the order dated February 3, 2015.
11. Upon a revisional application being moved in this court, bearing C.O. No. 817 of
2015, a co‐ordinate bench of this court set aside the impugned order and directed the
trial court to consider the application under Section 151 of the CPC (for recall) afresh
in the light of the observations made therein.
12. By an order dated January 28, 2016, the trial court allowed the recall application
again and fixed the next date for hearing of the application under Section 151 of the
CPC, to set aside the ex parte accounts commissioner’s report.
13. On February 20, 2016, the defendant/petitioner filed an application under Order VI
Rule 17, read with Section 151, of CPC, seeking amendment of the application for
setting aside the commissioner’s report dated February 4, 2015.
14. The trial court disposed of the said amendment application vide order dated
February 12, 2019, thereby refusing the prayer for amendment made by the
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petitioner, except the introduction of paragraph 15(b) to the said application, which
was allowed.
15. Learned senior counsel appearing for the petitioner argues that the amendment
ought to have been allowed as a whole, since the same was intended to incorporate
details and particulars of pleadings already existent in the original application for
setting aside of the accounts commissioner’s report. Learned senior counsel argues
that the amendments were only in elaboration of the original pleadings.
16. Certain allegations, such as the accounts commissioner having filed the report with
the help and active participation of the plaintiff, were sought to be incorporated as
well. However, those pleadings, it is argued, emanated from the original pleadings
and were necessary to provide a basis for the arguments to be advanced by the
defendant/petitioner on the application for setting aside of the ex parte report.
17. It is also argued that the proposed amended paragraph no. 15(b), which was allowed
by the court below, was in consonance with the other proposed amendments, in
particular paragraph 15(a), and as such the amendment ought to have been allowed
in its entirety.
18. Learned senior counsel for the plaintiff/opposite party no. 1, being the main
contesting opposite party, submits that the amendment was taken out only to
protract the litigation further. Placing reliance on the order dated February 12, 2015
passed by the division bench in FAT No. 607 of 2014, learned senior counsel argues
that the division bench had granted liberty to the trial Judge to pass the final decree
on the basis of the report of the accounts commissioner, thereby leaving no scope for
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setting aside the said report. Moreover, as per the order of the division bench dated
February 12, 2015, the previous interim orders of stay were vacated and only a final
decree remained to be passed. At this belated juncture, the petitioner came up with
the amendment application to further procrastinate the suit, which attempt, on the
face of it, was mala fide.
19. Since the petitioner failed to comply with the conditions of grant of stay imposed by
the division bench, that is, deposit of Rs.4 crore, this court ought not to permit the
petitioner to drag the proceeding in the garb of a challenge to an order, whereby the
previous amendment had been partially rejected.
20. It is further argued that the pleadings sought to be incorporated by amendment
already existed in the original application for setting aside the commissioner’s report
and as such the proposed amendment would serve no effective purpose.
21. The new ground, of collusion between the plaintiff and the commissioner, ought not
to be permitted to be introduced by amendment at this belated stage.
22. That apart, the said allegation as to purported collusion was already covered by the
couched in a slightly different language.
23. Learned senior counsel for the opposite party no. 1 argues further that the
amendments were mostly legal arguments and based on records, which could, in any
event, be argued at the time of hearing of the application for setting aside of
commissioner’s report, even without any amendment.
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24. A judgment reported at (1979) 4 SCC 163 = AIR 1979 SC 551 [Pandit Ishwardas vs. State
of Madhya Pradesh and others] is cited for the proposition that although there was no
impediment against an appellate court permitting amendment of pleadings to enable
a party to raise a new plea, one of the circumstances to be taken into consideration
before granting the amendment is the delay in making the amendment application.
25. A perusal of the proposed amendment makes it abundantly clear that the same was
mostly argumentative. The proposed amended paragraph no. 3(a) dealt only with
propositions which could be derived or inferred from certain orders, Section 14(a)
sought to introduce arguments based on materials which were already on record.
Paragraph 23(a) was also based on arguments. All the said arguments could very
well be advanced by the defendant/petitioner at the time of moving the application
for setting aside of the accounts commissioner’s report without any amendment of
such application being effected.
26. As far as the contentions in proposed amended paragraph no. 15(a) are concerned,
the allegation as to the purported nexus between the plaintiff and the accounts
commissioner was sufficiently pleaded in the amended paragraph no. 15(b), which
was allowed by the impugned order. As such, since the rest of the paragraph no.
15(a) was comprised of inferences from records and was virtually argumentative, no
questions in controversy.
27. Moreover, the ingredients of the amendments were already present in the original
application for setting aside the commissioner’s report, enabling the petitioner to
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advance arguments on the same at the time of hearing of the application without any
further amendment being required.
28. However, the contention of the opposite party no. 1, that in view of the direction of
the division bench on the trial court to pass a final decree on the basis of the accounts
commissioner’s report precluded the petitioner from making a prayer for setting
aside the report, is not acceptable since the division bench itself clarified that its
order would not prevent the trial Judge to dispose of the application filed by the
petitioner.
already been recalled, the petitioner was entitled to move its application for setting
aside of the commissioner’s report as there was no impediment in moving the same.
Yet, such right of the petitioner does not ipso facto justify the rest of the amendment,
other than that allowed.
30. For the aforesaid reasons, the impugned order suffers from no illegality and/or
jurisdictional error. Accordingly, C.O. No.1010 of 2019 is dismissed, thereby
affirming the impugned order.
31. There will be no order as to costs.
32. Urgent certified website copies of this order, if applied for, be made available to the
parties upon compliance with the requisite formalities.
( Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya, J. )
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