The division bench of  Justices MR Shah and CT Ravikumar of the Supreme Court of India has held that a plaint should be rejected under Order VII Rule XI(a) and (d) of CPC if it is vexatious, illusory cause of action and barred by limitation.

In the said matter, the defendant filed an application seeking rejection of the plaint contending that the suit was clearly barred by limitation and therefore, the plaint ought to have been rejected under Order VII Rule XI(d) of the CPC.

Earlier, the Trial Court rejected the said application and the said order was upheld by the High Court.

The defendant approaches the Top Court and submitted that the suit was barred by limitation as the same was instituted 61 years after the execution of the partition deed dated 11.03.1953 and that by clever drafting the plaintiffs have tried to bring the suit within the law of limitation, which is otherwise barred by limitation.

On the other hand, the plaintiffs contended that in the application under Order VII Rule XI and the prayer for rejection of the plaint, only averments of the plaint are material and can be taken into consideration and any evidence or averments made in the written statement cannot be considered.

"There cannot be any dispute with respect to the proposition of law laid down by this Court that while deciding the application under Order VII Rule XI, mainly the averments in the plaint only are required to be considered and not the averments in the written statement. However, on considering the averments in the plaint as they are, we are of the opinion that the plaint is ought to have been rejected being vexatious, illusory cause of action and barred by limitation and it is a clear case of clever drafting.", the court observed while allowing the appeal.

The Court noted that, the plaintiffs have instituted the suit with the prayers which is nothing but a clever drafting to get out of the limitation

Case Title -Ramisetty Venkatanna vs Nasyam Jamal Saheb