Madras High Court: a defendant transposed as plaintiff cannot amend the plaint under Order VI Rule 17 CPC

In a civil revision under Article 227 of the Constitution, the Madras High Court (Justice N. Anand Venkatesh) set aside a trial court order allowing amendment of the plaint in a 2005 suit, holding that a party transposed from defendant to plaintiff cannot amend the very plaint he did not originally file. The suit, filed by one Martin against the petitioner and a second defendant (Martin's power-of-attorney agent), sought to declare void the petitioner's unilateral cancellation of a sale deed. After Martin's death, the second defendant was transposed as second plaintiff under an earlier Division Bench order, having himself earlier filed a written statement supporting Martin's case. He then sought to amend the plaint under Order VI Rule 17 CPC to add fresh pleas, including that the cancellation was void and that a later settlement deed from Martin made him the property's absolute owner.

The High Court held that Order VI Rule 17 lets only the party who filed a pleading amend that pleading: a defendant cannot amend a plaint, nor a plaintiff a written statement. Since the transposed plaintiff had earlier pleaded only as a defendant, allowing him to now amend the original plaintiff's plaint would, in substance, let the same person rewrite his own written statement through the plaint, producing anomalous results. The trial court's order was accordingly set aside as perverse, with a direction to dispose of the suit within three months.