Bombay HC rejects bid to widen 22-year-old Pune land suit by correcting survey number

Can a party widen the scope of a decades-old land dispute by claiming that a wrong survey number was entered in the original suit? The Bombay High Court has firmly rejected such an attempt. The court said amendment of pleadings cannot be made a means to prolong a suit, revive time-barred claims or put the rights of third-party buyers at risk.

Justice Sandeep V. Marne dismissed the writ petition of Subhadrabai Tukaram Kate. Kate had challenged an order of the civil court at Vadgaon Maval dated April 23, 2018, which refused permission to amend a land title suit filed in 1995. The dispute concerns agricultural land in Karla village of Maval taluka in Pune district.

Senior Advocate Surel Shah, appearing for Kate, argued that one disputed parcel had been wrongly written as Gat No. 612 instead of Gat No. 602 in the original plaint. He said the correction was merely formal and necessary to decide the real dispute between the parties.

Shah also said the plaintiffs had not executed the disputed sale deeds themselves, so they could seek a declaration that the transactions were not binding on their title. Citing the Supreme Court's judgment in Shanti Devi vs Jagan Devi, he said such challenges should not be dismissed as time-barred. He added that the suit was filed in 1995, so the stricter conditions introduced in the Code of Civil Procedure in 2002 did not apply to it. If there was delay, it could be made up by imposing costs, and the amendment need not be refused outright, he said.

Opposing the petition, Senior Advocate Anil Anturkar said what was being described as a typing error did not match the plaintiffs' own records. He said the original plaint carried the boundaries of Gat No. 612. In an earlier amendment sought in 2013, he said, the December 2008 sale deed was challenged only for Gat No. 583. The deed covered both Gat Nos. 583 and 602, yet the plaintiffs deliberately left Gat No. 602 out of their challenge.

Anturkar said an attempt in 2017 to challenge transactions made between 2006 and 2008 was beyond the limitation period. He urged the High Court to uphold the trial court's refusal.

Justice Marne found that the plaintiffs' own papers went against their claim. The original plaint mentioned Gat No. 612 along with its boundaries. An application made to the district collector in 1994 also referred to Gat Nos. 583 and 612. The plaintiffs had also filed the 7/12 extract for Gat No. 612. The court found it hard to accept that these repeated references came from an inadvertent mistake. It also noted that the petitioner had not disclosed the earlier 2013 amendment in the writ petition.

The High Court laid particular stress on the rights of third parties. Several buyers had purchased portions of Gat No. 602 when that land was not part of the pending suit. Bringing it into the suit decades later would change the very nature of the dispute and affect their settled rights. The court said the proposed amendment could also drag the buyers into a long legal battle and negotiations.

Distinguishing the case from Shanti Devi, Justice Marne said the plaintiffs were seeking title to the entire land, not merely protection of a defined share in jointly held land. The challenges to the 2006-2008 documents therefore did not fall within the principle the petitioner relied on.

The High Court held the amendments to be time-barred and lacking in good faith. Rejecting the argument that costs could make up for the delay, Justice Marne said a time-barred and mala fide amendment cannot be allowed merely on payment of costs. The court dismissed the petition without costs, and the original title dispute will now proceed in the civil court.