Impleadment in specific performance suits may include co-owners with a real interest when complete adjudication requires their presence.

In a suit for specific performance, co-owners or heirs asserting a real interest in the suit property may be impleaded as defendants under Order I, Rule 10(2) CPC if their presence is needed for complete adjudication. Section 19 of the Specific Relief Act does not create an absolute bar to such impleadment; it only identifies against whom specific performance may be enforced. A stranger with no semblance of title is ordinarily not a proper party, but where the applicant shows a bona fide co-ownership claim and addition will not convert the suit into a title dispute, the Court may permit impleadment on terms confining the issues to specific performance. The impugned refusal to implead was therefore set aside.

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Issues: Whether co-owners claiming a share in the suit property could be impleaded as party defendants in a suit for specific performance under Order I, Rule 10(2) of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, and whether Section 19 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963 barred such impleadment.

Analysis: The right of the plaintiff to choose defendants as dominus litis is subject to the Court's power under Order I, Rule 10(2) to add a necessary or proper party whose presence is required for an effective and complete adjudication of the controversy. Section 19 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963 indicates the persons against whom specific performance can be enforced, but it does not create an absolute bar against impleadment of a non-party where the facts justify addition as a proper party. The governing authorities show that a stranger claiming no semblance of title cannot ordinarily be impleaded, but where the applicant asserts a real interest or co-ownership and impleadment would not enlarge the suit into a title dispute, the Court may allow addition, including on terms limiting the scope of issues to be decided. On the facts, the applicants had support from inventory proceedings showing one applicant as an heir, and their presence was considered necessary to decide the extent and form of possible specific performance.

Conclusion: The applicants were proper parties and their impleadment was rightly to be allowed; Section 19 did not bar the application.

Final Conclusion: The impugned order refusing impleadment was set aside, and the petitioners were permitted to be added as defendants, subject to the suit remaining confined to issues relating to specific performance.

Ratio Decidendi: In a suit for specific performance, a non-party claiming a real co-ownership interest and a semblance of title may be impleaded as a proper party under Order I, Rule 10(2) if that presence is necessary for complete adjudication and does not impermissibly widen the suit beyond the controversy on specific performance.

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