EVENTS HAPPENING AFTER INSTITUTION OF SUIT

The basic rule is that the rights of the parties should be determined on the basis of the date of filing of the suit. Thus, where the plaintiff has no cause of action on the date of the filing of the suit, he will not ordinarily be  allowed to take advantage of the cause of action arising subsequent to the filing of the suit. Similarly, no relief will be refused to the plaintiff by reason of any subsequent event if at the date of the  institution of the suit, he has a substantive right.

This, however, does not mean that no events happening after the institution of a suit can be taken into account at  all. In appropriate cases, it is not only the right but the duty of the court to consider the changed circumstances.

Where it is shown that the original relief claimed by the plaintiff has, by reason of subsequent change in the circumstances, become useless or inappropriate or where it is necessary to take notice of changed circumstances to shorten litigation, a new relief may serve the purpose better or that a relief is required to be reshaped or moulded in the light of change in facts or in law  ▪ to do full and complete justice between the parties, the court is bound to depart from the above rule and mould the relief in the light of altered  circumstances.

AMARJIT SINGH V. KHATOON QUAMARAIN, [AIR 1987 SC 741.]

The Supreme Court observed, "Administration of justice demands that any change either in fact or in law must be taken cognizance  of by the court but that must be done in a cautious manner of relevant facts. Therefore, subsequent events can be taken cognizance of if they are relevant and material." 

PASUPULETI VENKATESWARLU V. MOTOR & GENERAL TRADERS [(1975)1 SCC 770: AIR 1975 SC 1409.]

In the above leading case of Krishna Iyer, J. rightly propounded: "It is basic to our processual jurisprudence that the right to relief must be judged to exist as on the date a suitor  institutes the legal proceeding. Equally clear is the principle that procedure is the handmaid and not the mistress of the judicial process. If a fact, arising after the lis has come to court and has a fundamental impact on the right to relief or the manner of  moulding it, is brought diligently to the notice of the tribunal, it cannot blink at it or be blind to events which stultify or render inept the decretal remedy. 

Equity justifies bending the rules of procedure, where no specific provision or fair play is violated, with a view to  promote substantial justice—subject, of course, to the absence of other disentitling factors or just circumstances. Nor  can the court contemplate any limitation on this power to take note of updated facts to confine it to the trial court.

RAMJI LAL V. STATE OF PUNJAB [AIR 1966 PUNJ 374: ILR (1966) 2 PUNJ 125 (FB).]

It is submitted that the following observations in above case lay down correct law on the point and are, therefore,  worth quoting: "It is true that courts do very often take notice of events that happen subsequent to the filing of suits and at  times even those that have occurred during the appellate stage and permit pleadings to be amended for  including a prayer for relief on the basis of such events but this is ordinarily done to avoid multiplicity of  proceedings or when the original relief claimed has, by reason of change in the circumstances, become  inappropriate and not when the plaintiff's suit would be wholly displaced by the proposed amendment and afresh  suit by him would be so barred by limitation.

Thus, where during the pendency of a suit for permanent injunction, the plaintiff is dispossessed by the defendant, the court can grant relief for restoration of possession also. 

Similarly, in a suit for partition by A against his brothers B and C, if C dies, A can claim one-half share instead of one third.

Again, where the proceedings under the Rent Control Act for permission to evict a tenant were pending, subsequent  events affecting the right of the landlord to evict have been taken into account even in revision.

So also, pending an appeal in the Supreme Court, the defendant, Head of the Mutt, who nominated the plaintiff as  his successor died, the Supreme Court took notice of that event, and declared the plaintiff as the successor of the  defendant under the will alleged to have been revoked by the deceased defendant. [Mahalinga Thambiran v.  Arulnandi Thambiran, (1974) 1 SCC 150 at pp. 166-67: AIR 1974 SC 199; M.M. Quasim v. Manohar Lal, supra.]

But where the rights of the parties have already crystallised and the decision has reached finality, the concluded  controversy cannot be reopened on the basis of subsequent events by divesting a party of the benefit of the right  which accrued to him. [Bhajan Lal v. State of Punjab, (1971) 1 SCC 34;