The court's power to strike out unnecessary, scandalous, or embarrassing matter from pleadings under Order VI, Rule 16, Civil Procedure Code, 1908, is discretionary and should be exercised with great care and caution.

ORDER:- The plaintiff Anant Balkrishna Naik has come before me with this revision application praying that the order of the Addl. Civil Judge, Senior Division, Margao dated April 3, 1975 be set aside and certain statements contained in the written statement of Govind Datta Gaundalkar, the defendant in the suit and respondent in the present petition be struck out in the exercise of the Courts power under Order 6, Rule 16 of the Civil Procedure Code, 1908.

2. The plaintiff filed a suit against the defendant, being suit No. 8/74 in the Court of Addl. Civil Judge, Senior Division, Margao claiming from the defendant Rs. 5,000/- by way of damages in respect of a shed allegedly belonging to the plaintiff. In his written statement the defendant made certain statements at paragraph 8 thereof which according to the plaintiff are irrelevant, unnecessary, scandalous and tending to prejudice plaintiffs case. The statement reads as under:-

"With this motive the plaintiffs son has filed a Criminal Complaint against the defendant at Bombay on the false ground of defamation on the basis of a statement which is true and bona fide made by the defendant to protect his own interest in his reply being Exhibit 1 hereto to the plaintiffs attorenys letter dated 16th October 1973, but the same was subsequently settled after plaintiffs son caused the defendant severe hardship and inconvenience and after compelling him at great cost and inconvenience to attend the Criminal Court at Bombay." The plaintiff moved the trial Court for striking out the said statement in exercise of its power under Order VI, Rule 16, Civil P. C. His application was rejected. He now files this revision application.

3. In reply to the application of the plaintiff the defendant states that the passage which according to the plaintiff contains statements which are unnecessary, scandalous and so on was, a portion of paragraph 8 of his written statement; that the plaintiff has deliberately suppressed the remaining averments in paragraph 8; that read as a whole the averments in paragraph 8 do not come within the purview of O. VI, Rule 16; that the plaintiff and his son Arvind are doing everything possible to harass him with a view to bring pressure on him to settle the suit on terms favourable to the plaintiff, that the plaintiff and his son Arvind have always acted in concert with regard to the subject-matter of the suit; that on several occasions Arvind had intervened with him and his brother; that Arvind had stated to Jagdish the brother of the defendant that he as an Advocate could, through a solicitor in Bombay bring pressure upon the defendant to vacate the shed; that to harass him the plaintiff instituted false contempt proceeding which was dismissed after it was heard; that Arvind adopted criminal proceedings against him only to harass him and to bring pressure on him to settle suit No. 107/71; that therefore the statements contained in paragraph 8 of his written statement were relevant to show that the plaintiff is in the habit of instituting proceedings like the present suit, which is vexatious.

4. I have no doubt that the matter is not scandalous. The plaintiff does not say that it tends to prejudice, embarass or delay the fair trial of the suit. What he states is that the matter tends to prejudice the petitioners case. The petitioner also does not state that the statement tends to embarass the fair trial of the suit. What he says is that the statement tends to embarass. Therefore the only question for my determination is whether the statement is unnecessary. It is the case of the defendant that the suit No. 8/74 is frivolous and vexatious and that it was filed with the ulterior motive of bringing pressure on the defendant to vacate the shed of the hosiery factory and that the plaintiff is harassing the defendant in every possible way with a view to compelling the defendant to hand over the shed to the plaintiff. The defendant states that the averments which are said t