The court emphasized that a plaint cannot be rejected based on potential defenses, reaffirming the principle that the merits of the case require evaluation at trial, not at the initial stage of the application.

JUDGMENT

Yashwant Varma, J.

I.A. 7028/2020(Rejection of Plaint)

1. By means of the present order, the Court proceeds to dispose of the instant application which is purported to have been made under Order VII Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 [Code] read with Section 151 of the Code. The foundation of the instant application is the assertion of the defendants that the instant suit is utterly vexatious, in abuse of the process of Court and barred by limitation.

2. The defendants assert that the instant suit seeks a declaration in respect of the last Will and Testament dated 08 October 1998 stated to have been made by the late Madan Mohan Gupta and has evidently been instituted more than 16 years after the plaintiff had obtained knowledge of the aforesaid Will. It is asserted that the instant suit is in gross abuse of the process of Court and has been laid only to harass the defendants who are all senior citizens.

3. Before proceeding to deal with the grounds on which the present application is sought to be pressed, it would be pertinent to advert to the following facts leading up to the institution of the suit itself.

4. The suit is one for declaration in respect of the Will of the father of plaintiff dated 08 October 1998. It further seeks the drawl of a preliminary decree of partition of the suit property demarcating and allocating the same between the plaintiff and the defendants to the extent of 1/3rdshare each. Apart from other ancillary reliefs, it also seeks a decree of partition and permanent injunction restraining the defendants from selling, alienating, transferring, parting with the whole of/or any portion of the suit property. The plaint averments identify the property to be situate at 27, Friends Colony, West, Mathura Road, New Delhi.

5. It is averred that the plaintiff and the defendants are the descendants of the late Shri Dalip Singh who was their paternal grandfather. The plaintiff and the defendants are the children of the late Sh. Madan Mohan Gupta and the late Smt. Shakti Madan Gupta. The plaintiff is the youngest of the three children of the late Sh. Madan Mohan Gupta and late Smt. Shakti Madan Gupta while the defendants are the two sisters.

6. The plaint further asserts that the suit property was originally allotted to the grandfather of the parties namely Sh. Dalip Singh. The grandfather is stated to have gifted the aforesaid plot along with the residential building standing upon it to his wife and the late Shri Madan Mohan Gupta. The aforesaid Gift Deed dated 27 February 1958 stands duly registered in the office of the Sub-Registrar, New Delhi. After the demise of the grandfather, the property is stated to have passed on to the late Sh. Madan Mohan Gupta and Smt. Munga Devi [the grandmother] who became joint owners of the suit property. The aforesaid two parties are stated to have executed a Registered Deed of Partition on 07 September 1972 in terms of which the suit property was partitioned by metes and bounds as a consequence of which the front portion of the plot admeasuring 2374 square yards fell to the share of late Madan Mohan Gupta and the balance 1882 square yards came to the late Smt. Munga Devi.

7. Smt. Munga Devi who breathed her last on 20 March 1989 is stated to have executed a Will dated 26 November 1981 whereby she bequeathed her absolute share in the property in favour of the plaintiff here. It becomes pertinent to note that her share came to be allotted property number "27A". The plaintiff on the basis of the aforesaid Will is stated to have had his name mutated on the property on 27 July 1989.

8. According to the plaintiff,