- Case
- PANDURANG RAJARAM INAMDAR v. ACCELYA SOLUTION INDIA LTD. (Bombay High Court, 18-03-2025)
- Law
- Code of Civil Procedure.
Facts: Pandurang Rajaram Inamdar, the plaintiff, filed a suit against Accelya Solution India Private Ltd. for recovery of arrears of salary, declaration of employment, and mandatory injunction. The trial court partly decreed the suit for salary recovery up to a certain period but rejected the declaration and mandatory injunction. During the pendency of the appeal, the plaintiff sought to abandon the prayer for declaration that he is an employee of the defendant company. The District Judge rejected this application.
Procedural Posture: The plaintiff, aggrieved by the District Judge's order rejecting his application to abandon a part of his claim, filed a writ petition before the High Court of Bombay.
Issue: Can a plaintiff be permitted to abandon a part of their claim at the appellate stage, particularly when the trial court has already adjudicated on the matter and a decree has been passed? Does Order XXIII Rule 1(1) of the Code of Civil Procedure grant an unfettered right to abandon a claim, even at the appellate stage?
Holding: The High Court held that the plaintiff cannot be permitted to abandon the prayer for declaration at the appellate stage because the trial court had already adjudicated on the issue of employment, resulting in a declaration in favor of the defendant. Allowing the abandonment would prejudice the defendant's vested rights under the decree. The writ petition was dismissed.
Reasoning: The Court reasoned that while Order XXIII Rule 1(1) generally grants a plaintiff the prerogative to unconditionally withdraw a suit or abandon a part of their claim, this right is not absolute, especially after a decree has been passed. The Court relied on several Supreme Court judgments, including Anil Kumar Singh vs. Vijay Pal Singh, R. Ramamurthi Iyer vs. Raja V. Rajeshwara Rao, R. Rathinavel Chettiar vs. V. Sivaraman, and Sneh Gupta vs. Devi Sarup, to emphasize that once rights are crystallized by a decree, the plaintiff's right to withdraw or abandon is curtailed. The Court found that abandoning the declaration prayer would destroy the defendant's right accrued from the trial court's decree, which had determined that the plaintiff was not an employee after a specific date. The Court also noted that the prayer for mandatory injunction was inextricably linked to the declaration of employment, making the latter the principal prayer. Allowing the abandonment would cause prejudice to the defendant.
