Plaint rejection is impermissible where pleadings raise triable issues of fact and law requiring evidentiary adjudication.

The Appellants and Respondents 1–3 are the legal heirs of Late Shri Surendra Prakash Gupta

Following prior unsuccessful litigations regarding Property No. 144, Deepali Pitampura (1995–2008), the Appellants instituted CS(OS) 20/2022 for partition and declaration

The suit was predicated on an unregistered Will dated 17.02.2002, which allegedly superseded a registered Will dated 23.05.1997

The Appellants claimed they only learned of the 1997 Will and subsequent mutation in favor of Respondent No. 1 in November 2021

Respondent No. 1 filed an application under Order VII Rule 11 of the CPC, asserting the 2002 Will was a fabrication and the suit was barred by limitation

A Single Judge of the High Court allowed the application on 02.04.2025, rejecting the plaint as vexatious and time-barred under Article 58 of the Limitation Act

The Appellants challenged this rejection in the present appeal.

1. Whether the learned Single Judge erred in rejecting the plaint under Order VII Rule 11(a) and (d) of the CPC by prematurely adjudicating disputed facts regarding the validity of the Wills.

2. Whether the suit was ex-facie barred by limitation, or if the issue of limitation constituted a mixed question of fact and law requiring trial.

The Court applied Order VII Rule 11 of the CPC, which mandates the rejection of a plaint that fails to disclose a cause of action or is barred by law

It relied on Popat and Kotecha Property v. State Bank of India Staff Assn. (2005) 7 SCC 510, establishing that for Rule 11 purposes, only the averments in the plaint are germane and must be read as a whole

The Court further referenced T. Arivandandam v. T. V. Satyapal (1977) 4 SCC 467 regarding the duty to detect "clever drafting" while cautioning against a "pedantic approach"

Article 58 of the Limitation Act, 1963 was considered, which prescribes a three-year period for declarations starting from when the right to sue first accrues

The Division Bench found that the Single Judge exceeded the limited scope of Order VII Rule 11 by conducting a mini-trial on the "implausibility" of the 2002 Will

The Bench noted that the Single Judge’s conclusion—that a father reverting from a registered 1997 Will to an unregistered 2002 Will was "inconceivable"—constituted a factual inquiry into "suspicious circumstances" inappropriate for the threshold stage

The Single Judge’s finding that the Appellants did not dispute the 1997 Will was held to be contrary to the express pleadings in paragraph 32 of the plaint

On the issue of limitation, the Bench observed that the Appellants pleaded a lack of knowledge of the 1997 Will until 2021 and alleged fraud in the mutation process

Since the Appellants also claimed a "continuously accruing cause of action" due to threats of dispossession, the Bench determined that limitation in this context was a mixed question of fact and law that cannot be summarily decided without evidence

The Court held that the plaint raised triable issues regarding the validity of the subsequent Will and the discovery of alleged fraud, which must be adjudicated through a full trial rather than rejected at the threshold

The suit [CS(OS) 20/2022] was restored to its original number, and parties were directed to appear before the Roster Bench on 28.04.2026