Wakilii

Kiggundu v Iga (Misc. Application No. 1345 of 2018)

High Court · [2019] UGHCLD 12 · 2019 Application Dismissed AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Application for leave to amend counterclaim in the High Court Land Division arising from a pending civil suit
Decision
Application struck out with costs to the respondent

Observed later treatment

No later-treatment classification is recorded for this judgment.

Citator coverage is limited to judgments in the Wakilii corpus and source-matched treatment records. Absence of a signal is not an assertion that the case remains good law.

AI-generated summary. This summary was generated by AI from the full text of the judgment. It may contain errors or omissions—always read the source judgment before relying on it.

Holding

An application for leave to amend a counterclaim was struck out where the applicant sought not to modify the pleading but merely to introduce a survey report he had omitted from the original counterclaim. The court held that such conduct did not constitute amendment within Order 6 rule 19 of the Civil Procedure Rules and amounted to an abuse of process.

Outcome

Application struck out with costs to the respondent

Facts

The applicant filed a written statement of defence and counterclaim in 2015 attaching a survey report by Luwandagga and Luwandagga Licensed Land Surveyors. The applicant later claimed that the author of the report had died and his office closed, making it impossible to present the report in court. The applicant instructed another firm which produced a similar report. He then applied for leave to amend the counterclaim to enable tabling of the new report. The respondent opposed the application, asserting that the original survey report had never been attached to the original counterclaim despite being mentioned, and that there was no proof of the surveyor's death or office closure.

Issues

  1. Whether the proposed changes to the counterclaim constitute an amendment within the meaning of Order 6 rule 19 of the Civil Procedure Rules.
  2. Whether the application was an abuse of the court process.

Orders

  • Application struck out.
  • Costs awarded to the respondent.

Rules and key headnotes

Civil Procedure — Amendment of Pleadings — Meaning and Scope of Amendment
Amendment of pleadings under Order 6 rule 19 of the Civil Procedure Rules means to change or modify a pleading by alteration, modification, deletion, or addition. It does not encompass the mere introduction of documentary evidence that was omitted from the original pleading.
Civil Procedure — Amendment of Pleadings — Grounds for Granting Leave
Leave to amend pleadings is granted where the amendment is necessary to enable the court to determine the real controversy between the parties. An application that does not propose genuine amendments but seeks to circumvent procedural requirements constitutes an abuse of the court process.

Legislation cited (5)

Full judgment

↓ Download PDF

The original judgment as reported. Read the original PDF before relying on any passage.

Kiggundu_v_Iga_(Misc._Application_No._1345_of_2018)_[2019]_UGHCLD_12_(6_March_2019)
Source: this page presents Wakilii’s issue analysis and metadata for a publicly reported Ugandan judgment. Any AI-generated summary is marked as such. Judgment text is sourced from the Uganda Legal Information Institute (ulii.org). Wakilii is not affiliated with ULII.