Rejection of Plaint--A plaint can be rejected where the suit itself appears from the statement in the plaint to be barred by any law
Resjudicata--Any question on an issue already decided finally in the previous suit cannot be raised in a subsequent suit between the same parties

JUDGMENT

Amol Rattan Singh, J.:- By this petition, the petitioner challenges the order of the learned trial court dated March 03, 2015, by which his application seeking rejection of the plaint in the suit filed by respondent no.1 herein has been dismissed. Vide the said suit, the respondent-plaintiff sought a declaration to the effect that the “rent agreement purporting to be dated 16.10.1989 executed between defendant No.1 and 5, and witnessed by defendant No.1 and 3, is false fictitious and forged document upon which the signatures of defendant Ajay Kumar have been forged by the other defendants, maliciously and that the said document is unenforceable and ineffective against the plaintiff”.

Further, consequential relief of permanent injunction, restraining the defendants in the suit (including the petitioner herein) from enforcing the said rent agreement ‘against the rights of the plaintiff’, had also been sought.

The application filed by the petitioner, seeking rejection of the plaint, is essentially on the ground that the validity and genuineness of the aforesaid agreement dated 16.10.1989 had already been settled in a previous civil suit instituted by the petitioner herein, bearing CS no.455 of 1993, with that judgment having become final and the respondent-plaintiff being very much a party to the said suit as a defendant therein, with him even having filed an appeal against the judgment of the trial court in that lis.

During the pendency of this petition, the petitioner is stated to have died, with an application (CM-14550-CII-2017) having been filed by one Nisha, contending that she is the daughter of the petitioner and that therefore she be allowed to pursue the petition as his legal representative.

Upon that application having been filed, Mr. Kamra, learned counsel for respondent no.1, had seriously objected to it being allowed, on the ground that as a matter of fact the late petitioner had testified to the effect that he had no children and therefore the petition cannot be perused by the applicant.

Though that issue had come up for hearing on various dates time and again, eventually yesterday, i.e. May 27, 2019, this court had put a query to learned counsel for the respondents, to address arguments on how, in the face of Explanation I to Section 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, the suit instituted by the respondent-plaintiff in the current lis, would not be actually barred on the principle of res judicata, and therefore why the application under Order 7 Rule 11 CPC filed by the petitioner before the trial court, should not actually have been accepted.

2. In response to what this court had observed in its order passed yesterday, i.e. May 27, 2019, Mr. Kamra has first pointed to clause (d) contained in Rule 11 of Order 7 of the Code, to submit that on an application moved under the said provision, a plaint can be rejected “where the suit appears from the statement in the plaint to be barred by any law”.

His contention therefore is that whether or not the suit in the current lis is barred on the principle of res judicata as contained in Section 11 of the Code, is not to be seen on any other parameter, other than any recital/statement in the suit filed by the plaintiff; and consequently, even if any matter has been adjudicated upon in a previous lis between the same parties (which also he denies on various grounds), that is not a criterion that can be applied by the court while considering an application under Order 7 Rule 11 (d).

3. He further submits that after issue no.1-A had been framed in the previous lis between the parties, i.e. Civil Suit no.455 of 1993 (such suit having been filed by the present petitioner arraigning the respondent herein as defendant no.2), the onus to prove that issue had been eventually cast only upon defendant no.1 in that suit, vide an order of the trial court (in that lis) passed on 09.08.2000, thereby ‘absolving the respondent’ herein from participating in that issue, and conseque