IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH AT SHIMLA CMPMO No.362 of 2022 Decided on 02nd September, 2025 Subhash Chand …Petitioner Versus Sukh Dev …Respondent Coram Hon’ble Mr. Justice Ajay Mohan Goel, Judge 1Whether approved for reporting? For the petitioner: Mr. Sanket Sankhyan, Advocate. For the respondent: Mr. Umesh Kanwar, Advocate. Ajay Mohan Goel, Judge (Oral) By way of this petition, the petitioner has prayed for the setting aside of the order passed by the learned Senior Judge, Jhandutta, District Bilaspur, H.P., in terms whereof, an application filed by the petitioner under Order 1 Rule 10 of the Civil Procedure Code has been dismissed. 2. Brief facts necessary for the adjudication of this petition are that the petitioner has filed a suit for recovery against the respondent. The suit was filed in the year 2013. In the year 2022, an application was filed by the petitioner under Order 1 Rule 10(2) of the Civil Procedure Code for impleading Smt. Karmi Devi wife of Sh. Sukh Dev as a party defendant. In terms of the 2 averments made in the application that while preparing the file, it came to the notice of the plaintiff that name of Smt. Karmi Devi wife of Sh. Sukh Dev was missing from the array of defendant and she was a necessary party, because, the plaintiff had transferred the money in her account at SBI Branch Slapar, District Mandi, H.P. and further an amount of Rs.3,75,000/- was deposited by the plaintiff in her account and it was from her account that the money which thereafter transferred to defendant Sukh Dev, which was the loan account. It is also mentioned in the application that at the time of the drafting of the case, the proposed defendant could not be impleaded as a defendant inadvertently and, therefore, the application be allowed by impleading the said defendant as a party defendant. 3. The application was opposed by the defendant, inter alia, on the ground that the proposed defendant was neither a necessary party nor a proper party and as the case of the plaintiff was that the loan amount was given by him to the defendant as was also evident from the notices issued by him, therefore, the filing of the application was nothing but an abuse of the process of law. 3 4. In terms of the impugned order, the application has been dismissed by the learned Trial Court by returning the following findings:- “It is pertinent to mention here that this case was filed way back in the month of May 2013 and issues on pleadings of parties were framed on 24.02.2016, whereas present application has been filed on 25.06.2022 when case was almost at its majority stage. Nothing has been stated in the present application that what prevented the applicant/plaintiff to exercise due conscientiousness in file the present application to array Smt. Karmi Devi as defendant. Prima facie this application is at very belated stage and now plaintiff cannot be allowed to fill lacuna of his case when defendant has disclosed his defence whereas there will be serious prejudice to the defendant. Furthermore, there is specific denial that applicant has transferred the amount of Rs.1,25,000/- in the account of Karmi Devi in SBI branch at Salapar and further denied that after few days the amount of Rs.3,75,000/- was given to the respondent but he asked the applicant to deposit the money in the account of Karmi Devi. The defence of the respondent is also on record, and now it appears that the applicant has filed the present application with malafide intention. The applicant has served the legal notice to the respondent on 31.12.2012 and 25.2.2013 for recovery of Rs.5,00,000/- and then the respondent has given the reply on 11.03.2013 to the applicant. But despite that applicant has filed the present suit against the respondent.” 5. Having gone through the findings returned by the learned Trial Court as well as the application filed by the petitioner under Order 1 Rule 10 of the Civil Procedure Code, this 4 Court is of the considered view that the same does not suffers from any perversity. It is a matter of record that the suit was filed in the year 2013 and the application was filed in the year 2022. There is no cogent explanation given therein as to why it took 10 years for the petitioner to realize that the wife of the defendant was also a necessary party on the basis of the averments made in the application. It is not the case of the petitioner that what has been averred in the application was not in his knowledge earlier. Therefore, as the filing of the application was nothing but an afterthought, the same was rightly rejected by the learned Trial Court, because, obviously, when the defence of the defendant stood disclosed, it was thereafter and not only thereafter, but, much thereafter that the application was filed. 6. The reliance placed upon by the learned counsel for the petitioner on the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in (2010) 7 Supreme Court Cases 417, titled Mumbai International Airport Private Limited versus Regency Convention Centre and Hotels Private Limited and others also does not comes to the rescue of the petitioner for the reason that though of course dominus litis is that of the plaintiff but in case the plaintiff files an 5 application under Order 1 Rule 10 for impleading a party as a party defendant, then, the Court has the right to go into the bona fidies of the prayer so made by the applicant and decide as to whether in the facts and circumstances of the case, the application is to be allowed or not. 7. In the present case, as the discretion vested in the learned Court has been rightly exercised by it and further as there is no perversity in the order, because, the view taken by the learned Court is one of the views which was possible in the backdrop of the facts before it, this Court otherwise is of the opinion that there is no occasion for this Court to interfere with the said order under Article 227 of the Constitution of India. 8. 8. In view of the above, the petition is dismissed. Interim orders, if any, also stand vacated. Pending miscellaneous applications, if any, also stand disposed of. (Ajay Mohan Goel) Judge September 02, 2025 (Vinod)