Rejection Of Plaint Under Order VII Rule 11 CPC [Explainer]

The filing of a plaint is a sine qua non for institution of a suit. It is basically a statement of claims, treated as a repository of facts by the court. Thus, every court is obligated to analyze the plaint, and decide whether it is fit to be admitted or not.Rule 11 under Order 7 of Code of Civil Procedure delineates certain grounds under which the court "shall" reject a plaint. These are:(a) where it does not disclose a cause of action;(b) where the relief claimed is undervalued, and the plaintiff, on being required by the court to correct the valuation within a time to be fixed by the court, fails to do so;(c) where the relief claimed is properly valued, but the plaint is written upon paper insufficiently stamped, and the plaintiff, on being required by the court to supply the requisite stamp paper within a time to be fixed by the Court, fails to do so;(d) where the suit appears from the statement in the plaint to be barred by any law;(e) where it is not filed in duplicate;(f) where the plaintiff fails comply with the provision of Rule 9 (which specifies the procedure after admission of the plaint). At what stage can plaint be rejected? If found to be deficient of any of the above mentioned factors, a plaint may be rejected by the court of its own motion or upon filing of an application in that behalf by the opposite party, at any stage of the proceedings, before conclusion of trial. The position was settled by the Apex Court in Sopan Sukhdeo Sable & Ors. v. Assistant Charity Commissioner & Ors., (2004) 3 SCC 137, whereby it observed, "The trial Court can exercise the power at any stage of the suit - before registering the plaint or after issuing summons to the defendant at any time before the conclusion of the trial. For the purposes of deciding an application under clauses (a) and (d) of Order VII Rule 11 of the Code, the averments in the plaint are the germane; the pleas taken by the defendant in the written statement would be wholly irrelevant at that stage." Further, it has been time and again held that once an application seeking rejection of plaint is moved by the respondent, it is essential to decide upon the application before proceeding further and that the Respondent cannot be compelled to file a written statement until such application is disposed of. "There is no point or sense in proceeding with the trial of the case, in case the plaint is only to be rejected at the threshold. Therefore, the defendant is entitled to file the application for rejection before filing his written statement. In case, the application is rejected, the defendant is entitled to file his written statement thereafter. But once an application for rejection is filed, the court has to dispose of the same before proceeding with the trial," the top court recently held in RK Roja v. US Rayudu & Anr., (2016) 14 SCC 275. It must be noted however that an order of rejection of plaint is a deemed decree, as defined under Section 2(2) of the Code. It is thus an appealable order. Effect of rejection of plaint on limitation An order of rejection of a plaint does not preclude a party from presenting a fresh plaint, in respect of the same cause of action, as per Rule 13 of Order 7. It is merely an order, indicating that the rejected plaint does not meet the requisite "standards". Thus, while computing the limitation for such plaints when filed afresh, the courts might extend the benefit of "bonafide litigation" under Section 14 of the Limitation Act, and the time wasted thereon, before the plaint was rejected, will be excluded. There is a decision from the Calcutta HC on this point. In that case, the plaint was rejected after the suit was found to be non-maintainable; but the HC declared the period of prosecution of the civil suit as period exempted under Section 14 Limitation Act (Anjan Choudhury v Anandneer Co-operative Registered Housing Society and others AIR 1990 Cal 380). Can Plaint be rejected in part? No, a plaint can either be rejected as a whole or not at all, held the top court in Sejal Glass Limited v. Navilan Merchants Private Limited, AIR 2017 SC 4477. In the said case, Justice RF Nariman had held that the word "plaint", as used in Rule 11 "necessarily means the plaint as a whole" and that if only a portion of the plaint, as opposed to the plaint as a whole is to be struck out, Order VI Rule 16 of the CPC, which relates to striking out pleadings, would apply. The court also clarified that where the plaint is barred qua one defendant but maintainable vis-à-vis others, the plaint cannot and should not be rejected as a whole. "In all such cases, if the plaint survives against certain defendants and/or properties, Order VII Rule 11 will have no application at all, and the suit as a whole must then proceed to trial," it held. The position was thereafter reaffirmed last year, by a division bench of the Supreme...

Rejection Of Plaint Under Order VII Rule 11 CPC [Explainer]

Akshita Saxena

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