Summary
Purchasers of land (defendants 9 and 10) sought rejection of a 2014 plaint for declaration of title and cancellation of several sale and partition deeds, contending that the suit really attacked a registered partition deed of 1953 which the plaintiffs had deliberately left unchallenged. The Supreme Court held that the plaint, read meaningfully, disclosed only an illusory cause of action created by clever drafting to escape limitation, and rejected it under Order VII Rule 11(a) and (d) CPC, reversing the trial court and the High Court.
Issues
- Whether a plaint whose case rests on an alleged error in a registered partition deed of 1953, but which deliberately omits any prayer against that deed or the 1968 gift deed that followed it, discloses a real cause of action or one that is merely illusory.
- Whether such a suit, instituted 61 years after the partition deed, is barred by limitation so that the plaint must be rejected under Order VII Rule 11(d) CPC.
- Whether the principles that boundaries prevail over survey numbers, and that only the plaint averments are to be seen at the Order VII Rule 11 stage, save the plaint.
Provisions considered
- Order VII Rule 11(a) and (d), Code of Civil Procedure, 1908On a meaningful rather than formal reading of the plaint, the Court found the suit vexatious, resting on an illusory cause of action, and barred by limitation; the plaint was therefore liable to be rejected under clauses (a) and (d), and the power can be exercised at any stage on the plaint averments alone. (¶¶ 5, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 6, 7.1, 8)
Held
- Where the plaintiffs' case is in substance that a registered partition deed of 1953 wrongly recorded a survey number, yet they seek no relief against that deed or the later gift deed, and instead sue for declaration of title and cancellation of subsequent transactions, the plaint is a product of clever drafting designed to get around limitation; a challenge to the 1953 deed brought 61 years later would be hopelessly time-barred. (¶¶ 5, 6)
- If on a meaningful reading the plaint is manifestly vexatious and meritless, or clever drafting has created the illusion of a cause of action, the court must nip it in the bud under Order VII Rule 11; a plaintiff cannot circumvent a statutory bar by omitting the facts that attract it. (¶¶ 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 6)
- The propositions that boundaries prevail over survey numbers and that only the plaint averments count at the Order VII Rule 11 stage are not in dispute, but applied to the plaint as it stands they do not rescue a suit that is barred by limitation and founded on an illusory cause of action. (¶¶ 7, 7.1)
Result
Appeal allowed; orders of the High Court and the trial court refusing to reject the plaint set aside; the application under Order VII Rule 11(a) and (d) CPC allowed and the plaint in O.S. No. 35/2014 rejected. No costs.