Court Cannot Grant Liberty To Amend Plaint While Rejecting It Under Order VII Rule 11(d) CPC: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court held that while rejecting a plaint under Order 7 Rule 11(d) of Code of Civil Procedure, the Court cannot grant liberty to the plaintiff to amend the plaint.

The proviso to Rule 11 covers the cases falling within the ambit of clauses (b) and (c) and has no application to a rejection of a plaint under Order 7 Rule 11(d), the bench comprising Justices DY Chandrachud and MR Shah observed.

In this case, the Trial Court permitted the plaintiff to carry out an amendment for seeking appropriate reliefs. Allowing the Revision petition, the High Court held that since the plaint was rejected under Order 7 Rule 11(d) there was no occasion to direct that an amendment be made to the plaint. Where the rejection of the plaint takes place under Order 7 Rule 11(d), there would be no question of granting time to the plaintiff to rectify the defects in the plaint, the High Court had observed.

In appeal, the Apex Court bench noted the proviso in Order 7 Rule 11 and said that it  deals with a situation where time has been fixed by the Court for the correction of the valuation or for supplying of the requisite stamp paper.

13.....Under the proviso, the time so fixed shall not be extended unless the court, for reasons to be recorded, is satisfied that the plaintiff was prevented by a cause of an exceptional nature from complying within the time fixed by the court and that a refusal to extend time would cause grave injustice to the plaintiff. The proviso evidently covers the cases falling within the ambit of clauses (b) and (c) and has no application to a rejection of a plaint under Order 7 Rule 11(d). In the circumstances,  the High Court was justified in coming to the conclusion that the further direction that was issued by the Trial Judge was not in consonance with law.

In this case, the High Court had dismissed the writ petition filed by the plaintiff against the order rejecting the plaint. 

"The definition of "decree" in Section 2(2) "shall be deemed to include the rejection of a plaint". Hence, the order of the Trial Court rejecting the plaint is subject to a first appeal under Section 96 of the CPC. The writ petition filed by the appellant was liable to be rejected on that ground.", the bench said while affirming the judgment of the High Court rejecting the writ petition.

Case: Sayyed Ayaz Ali vs. Prakash G Goyal [CA 2401-2402 of 2021]

Coram: Justices DY Chandrachud and MR Shah

Counsel: Sr. Adv Vinay Navare, Adv Pankaj Kothari

Citation: LL 2021 SC 314

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