The court upheld the dismissal of a civil suit due to the plaintiffs' failure to provide adequate evidence and individual testimonies to substantiate their claims for damages.

ORDER :

1. This civil first appeal (CFA) under section 96 read with Order 41 of the Jammu and Kashmir Civil Procedure Code Svt, 1977 is on the docket of this Court lasting now more than nine years in running.

2. The plaintiffs are the appellants in the present appeal being aggrieved of the judgment and decree dated 10.12.2014 passed by the Court of learned Pr. District Judge, Baramulla, whereby the civil suit filed by them on file No. 30/Civil on 31.01.2011 came to be dismissed.

3. Seventy-one plaintiffs had joined together to institute the aforementioned civil suit for purportedly earning to have a decree for damages and mandatory injunction for arrears of relief.

4. In the civil suit, the defendants were the State of Jammu and Kashmir (as it was then) and its officials for the purported cause of action for the seventy-one plaintiffs to lay the civil suit was an earthquake incident of October, 2005 which had left the Kashmir region badly affected causing loss of life and damage to the properties.

5. The plaintiffs in the civil suit came to aver and allege that said earthquake damaged their houses same suffering partial as well as full damage which entitled them to claim damages and the earthquake related reliefs admissible to the affected persons.

6. Despite the fact that proceedings in the civil suit were in ex-parte against the defendants, yet the plaintiffs/appellants failed to prove their cause before the Principal District Judge, Baramulla and suffered dismissal of their suit.

7. Although the court of Pr. District Judge, Baramulla taxed itself to appreciate the evidence brought on record by the plaintiffs/appellants to come to the conclusion that plaintiffs/appellants have failed to lay a factual basis for earning the decree as prayed for in their favour.

8. When this Court examines the plaint filed in the civil suit, the reading of the same leaves this Court with an inevitable conclusion that trial court should not have even wasted the judicial time at its end for four years of suit’s pendency and instead the suit should have been dismissed at the very outset by resorting to Order 7 Rule 11 CPC, Svt. 1977 on the count that the plaint was making no meaningful sense of the purported cause of action and right to sue of the plaintiffs.

9. Seventy-one plaintiffs joining in a civil suit even if given benefit of stating their individual cause in one para each would have generated a plaint not of 26 paras. There is no whisper of reference about the khasra numbers of village Markoot and Hamam Rafiabad wherein their alleged damaged houses where located and nature/extend of purported damage so suffered by the house building structures . In addition to aforesaid lacuna in the plaint on the basis of which the civil court of the learned Pr. District Judge Baramulla could not embarked on any other adjudication whatsoever, the other deficiency which afflicted the case and cause of the plaintiffs inviting dismissal of their civil suit is that all the seventy-one plaintiffs did not come forward in their individual capacity as their own witnesses to speak on his/her behalf to depose with respect to the house, property owned/possessed by him/her and the nature and extent of damage caused there to.

10. Thus, the suit of seventy-one plaintiffs was more in the nature of a representation as if addressed to the authority concerned for seeking their attention for carrying out the inspection of the area in which the houses of the plaintiffs were situated and to assess the alleged damage caused on account of the earthquake of October, 2005.

11. Interestingly, while the plaintiffs did not state anywhere in the plaint as to how much damage/monitory relief they were seeking to be decreed in their favour, nevertheless they valued their suit for the purposes of court fees and jurisdiction for an amount of Rs. 52400/- so as to maintain the civil suit before the court of Pr. District Judge, Baramulla which civil suit otherwise at a lesser court fees could have been