The High Court
Case Details
Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed Signed by: MANAS KUMAR PANDA Designation: Personal Assistant Reason: Authentication Location: OHC, Cuttack Date: 08-Sep-2025 17:54:56 IN THE HIGH COURT OF ORISSA AT CUTTACK CMP No.512 of 2025 (In the matter of an application under Article 227 of the Constitution of India) Umakanta Acharya …. Petitioner -versus- Smt. Nibedita Bose and Others … Opposite Parties Advocate(s) appeared in this case:- For Petitioner : Mr. D.P. Mohanty, Advocate For Opp. Parties : None CORAM: JUSTICE B.P. ROUTRAY JUDGMENT 1st September, 2025 B.P. Routray, J. 1.
Legal Reasoning
Heard Mr. D.P. Mohanty, learned counsel for the Petitioner. No one appears for the Opposite Parties despite notice is made sufficient. It is also submitted by Mr. Mohanty that the Opposite Parties (Defendants) were set ex-parte before the trial court. 2. Present CMP is directed against impugned order dated 20th January, 2025 of learned Senior Civil Judge, Nilgir passed in C.S. CMP No.512 of 2025 Page 1 of 8 Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed Signed by: MANAS KUMAR PANDA Designation: Personal Assistant Reason: Authentication Location: OHC, Cuttack Date: 08-Sep-2025 17:54:56 No.159 of 2024-I, wherein the prayer of the Plaintiff to make correction in the description of plot number has been refused. 3. The Plaintiff filed the suit praying for declaration of right title interest and possession in respect of suit schedule ‘B’ land with further prayer for permanent injunction. The suit schedule ‘B’ land is described as follows:- “B” SCHEDULE SUIT PROPERTY Balasore Dist Collectory, Nilgiri Sub Registry, Tahasil/PS- Nilgiri, Mouza-Nizgarh, Khata No.133, Plot No.2311 Area-A0.04 dec. out of A0.22 dec.” 4. The suit was ended with ex-parte judgment and decree in favour of the Plaintiff. The decree dated 22nd November, 2024 reads as under:- “The suit be and the same is decreed on contest against the defendant no.3 and ex parte against other defendants but in the facts and circumstances without cost. It is hereby declared the plaintiff has right, title and interest over the ‘B’ scheduled suit land by virtue of RSD no.757 dtd.12.05.2003 measuring an area A0.04 dec vide Exhibit no.2 over Ms suit plot no.2311 under khata no.133 vide Exhibit no.1. The defendant is hereby permanently injuncted from interfering in the possession of the plaintiff over his purchased land, i.e. ‘B’ scheduled suit land” CMP No.512 of 2025 Page 2 of 8 Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed Signed by: MANAS KUMAR PANDA Designation: Personal Assistant Reason: Authentication Location: OHC, Cuttack Date: 08-Sep-2025 17:54:56 5. Thereafter a petition dated 15th January, 2025 was filed by the Plaintiff praying to correct the plot no.2311 as plot no.2311/2910, on the ground that the error incorporated in the plaint is nominal and without any intention. It is further stated that after purchase of the land in question by the Plaintiff, original plot no.2311 was divided creating the by-plot 2311/2910 measuring area A0.04 dec. in Khata No.133. But this could not be inserted in the plaint properly due to inadvertence. The learned trial court refused to make correction in the decree stating that since the decree is correctly mentioning ‘B’ schedule property as mentioned in the plaint, no error is there on the part of the court to correct the plot number within the ambit and scope of Section 152 of the CPC. Thus the short point comes for consideration in present case is that, whether the party is allowed to correct the land schedule after the decree is pronounced. 6. The Hon’ble Apex Court in the case of Niyamat Ali Molla v. Sonargon Housing Cooperative Society Ltd. and Others, (2007) 13 SCC 421, has in similar issue discussing the scope of Court’s power under Section 152 read with Section 151 C.P.C. has held as follows:- 22. In Lakshmi Ram Bhuyan v. Hari Prasad Bhuyan [(2003) 1 SCC 197 : AIR 2003 SC 351] this Court opined that when a CMP No.512 of 2025 Page 3 of 8 Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed Signed by: MANAS KUMAR PANDA Designation: Personal Assistant Reason: Authentication Location: OHC, Cuttack Date: 08-Sep-2025 17:54:56 decree had been drawn up by the High Court, the Court can take recourse to Section 152 of the Code stating : (SCC p. 203, para 14) “14. … In our opinion, the successful party has no other option but to have recourse to Section 152 CPC which provides for clerical or arithmetical mistakes in judgments, decrees or orders or errors arising therein from any accidental slip or omission being corrected at any time by the court either on its own motion or on the application of any of the parties. A reading of the judgment of the High Court shows that in its opinion the plaintiffs were found entitled to succeed in the suit. There is an accidental slip or omission in manifesting the intention of the court by couching the reliefs to which the plaintiffs were entitled in the event of their succeeding in the suit. Section 152 enables the court to vary its judgment so as to give effect to its meaning and intention. Power of the court to amend its orders so as to carry out the intention and express the meaning of the court at the time when the order was made was upheld by Bowen, L.J. in Swire, Re, Mellor v. Swire [(1885) 30 Ch D 239 (CA)] subject to the only limitation that the amendment can be made without injustice or on terms which preclude injustice. Lindley, L.J. observed that if the order of the court, though drawn up, did not express the order as intended to be made then ‘there is no such magic in passing and entering an order as to deprive the court of jurisdiction to make its own records true, and if an order as passed and entered does not express the real order of the court, it would, as it appears to me, be shocking to say that the CMP No.512 of 2025 Page 4 of 8 Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed Signed by: MANAS KUMAR PANDA Designation: Personal Assistant Reason: Authentication Location: OHC, Cuttack Date: 08-Sep-2025 17:54:56 party aggrieved cannot come here to have the record set right, but must go to the House of Lords by way of appeal.’ ” 23. The same Bench again in Pratibha Singh v. Shanti Devi