AMENDMENT SEEKING REPETITION OF EXISTING PLEADINGS IS UNNECESSARY AND DOES NOT WARRANT SUPERVISORY INTERFERENCE.

The petitioner (tenant) challenged an order dated 26.03.2026 passed by the Rent Tribunal/Additional District Judge, Saharanpur, which rejected his application under Order VI Rule 17 of the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC) to amend his memorandum of appeal.

The underlying appeal arose from a judgment in a rent case filed under Section 21(2) of the U.P. Act No. 16 of 2021.

The petitioner sought to incorporate pleas of res judicata and estoppel; however, the Rent Tribunal found these pleas were already present in the existing pleadings and grounds of appeal.

The petitioner subsequently challenged this rejection through a supervisory petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India.

1. Whether the refusal of an amendment under Order VI Rule 17 CPC warrants interference under Article 227 of the Constitution when the proposed contentions already form part of the existing pleadings and memorandum of appeal.

2. Whether the rejection of such an amendment application precludes a party from raising pure questions of law at the stage of final hearing.

The court applied Order VI Rule 17 of the CPC, which permits amendments necessary for determining the real controversy but discourages repetitive or unnecessary pleadings.

It differentiated between "material facts" (foundation of a cause) and "legal submissions" (inferences from facts), noting that pure questions of law can be urged at final arguments if the factual foundation exists.

Regarding supervisory jurisdiction, the court relied on Shalini Shyam Shetty v. Rajendra Shankar Patil (2010) 8 SCC 329 and Garment Craft v. Prakash Chand Goel (2022) 4 SCC 181, which limit Article 227 interference to cases of patent perversity, manifest illegality, or jurisdictional error.

The High Court observed that the purpose of Order VI Rule 17 is to facilitate justice, not to encourage prolixity or the duplication of existing records.

Since the petitioner admitted that the principles of res judicata and estoppel were already explicitly mentioned in the pleadings and the memorandum of appeal, the court reasoned that the amendment was redundant.

The court emphasized that the Rent Tribunal’s refusal did not extinguish the petitioner’s substantive rights; it merely signified that further formal amendment was unnecessary.

Applying the restrictive standards of Article 227, the court found no "manifest failure of justice" because the petitioner remained free to argue those legal points during the final hearing based on the current record.

It clarified that the rejection of the amendment application under Order VI Rule 17 CPC does not preclude the petitioner from advancing all legal submissions founded upon the existing pleadings, including res judicata and estoppel, at the final hearing. The Rent Tribunal was directed to consider such submissions on their own merits, uninfluenced by the rejection of the amendment.