Karnataka HC Rejects Bid to Add Will and Partition-Deed Challenges to 22-Year-Old Family Suit; Both Documents Known Since 2004

Respondent No. 1 had instituted a partition suit in 2004, later numbered O.S. No. 786/2007.

After an earlier amendment was allowed in 2024, the plaintiff filed I.A. Nos. 28 and 29 seeking further amendments, including reliefs concerning a 1985 registered Will, a 2003 partition deed, and compensation for land acquired by the BDA.

The plaintiff relied on information allegedly obtained later about a 1948 Panchayat Palupatti.

The Trial Court allowed the applications on 1 June 2026.

Defendants 13, 15 and 16 challenged that order, contending that the relevant matters were already within the plaintiff’s knowledge and that the amendments would withdraw admissions and delay the suit.

Order VI Rule 17 CPC permits amendments necessary to determine the real questions in controversy, but after commencement of trial the proviso bars an amendment unless the applicant satisfies the Court that, despite due diligence, the matter could not have been raised earlier.

In Basavaraj v. Indira, (2024) 3 SCC 705, the Supreme Court emphasised the need to assess due diligence, bona fides, prejudice, alteration of the suit’s nature, limitation, and whether the amendment would remove an accrued right or indirectly achieve what cannot be done directly.

The Court also noted the general liberal approach to relevant amendments reflected in Ragu Thilak D. John v. S. Rayappan, Pankaja v. Yellappa and LIC of India v. Sanjeev Builders, while observing that the proviso’s requirements remained material.

The proposed amendments concerned the Will, partition deed and BDA acquisition compensation—matters the Court found were already within the plaintiff’s knowledge when the suit was filed in 2004.

The original plaint referred to the Will and partition deed, and the acquisition was also known to the plaintiff; the later-discovered Panchayat Palupatti did not form the basis of any substantive or consequential relief.

The plaintiff therefore failed to establish that due diligence prevented the amendments from being sought earlier.

The successive amendments, prolonged pendency and proposed departure from earlier admissions supported the Court’s conclusion that the applications were not bona fide and that the Trial Court had allowed them without properly applying the proviso.

It allowed the writ petition, set aside the order dated 1 June 2026 and rejected I.A. Nos. 28 and 29.

It also directed the Trial Court to dispose of the suit within one year from the next date of hearing.