A plaint must be rejected under civil procedural rules if it is clearly barred by limitation or lacks a cause of action. Courts must look beyond the form of the plaint and, should they detect 'clever drafting' masking a time-barred claim, must summarily dismiss it without trial.

ORDER :

SANJAY DWIVEDI, J.

Appellant has filed this appeal under Order 43 Rule 1(u) of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 assailing the judgment dated 13.09.2023 passed by the III District Judge Damoh, District Damoh in RCA No. 72/2022 whereby the judgment and decree dated 18.10.2022 passed by the III Additional Civil Judge, Damoh in Civil Suit No. 96-A/2019 has been reversed and the matter has been remitted back to the trial court for de-novo trial.

2. For the purpose of clarity, hereinafter the respondent Nos. 1 to 4 shall be addressed as plaintiffs and, the appellant, respondent Nos. 6 to 10 and the State shall be addressed as defendants.

3. As per the facts of the case, the plaintiffs had filed a civil suit bearing RCS-A No. 96/2019 for declaration of the sale deeds executed in favour of the defendants as null and void and for permanent injunction restraining the defendants from interfering with their possession.

3.1 The dispute was with regard to Khasra No. 115 (new Khasra Nos. 188 and 189) area 8.09 hectares which was further sub-divided into Khasra Nos.115/1, 115/2 and 115/3 and during the process of settlement its area was reduced to 6.93 hectares and as such the reduced area i.e. 1.449 hectares numbered as Kh. No. 83 is the subject matter of dispute and claimed to be ancestral property of the plaintiffs.

3.2 As per the averments made in the plaint, Roopchand Dhobi, father of the plaintiff-Paramlal Rajak, died on 22.11.1990. Father of Rupchand Dhobi was Nannai Dhobi. Plaintiff-Paramlal Rajak died on 17.11.2010. The suit property was the ancestral property and after settlement, the area of the said property got reduced, in respect of which, a Revenue Case No. 57-A-6(Pra)/2017-18 was tried by the then Sub Divisional Officer, Damoh and as such the reduced area i.e. 1.449 hectare of Kh. No. 83 was also considered to be the ancestral property, which is the disputed land herein.

3.3 The plaintiffs alleged that the defendant No. 1 (present appellant) was an ostentatious person and was in the habit of grabbing the property of others and as such he was facing several cases of similar nature. He also tried to grab the property of the plaintiffs and this fact came to their knowledge only when the defendants in association with the revenue authorities, even without issuing any notice to the plaintiffs, came over the Kh. No. 83 area measuring 1.449 hectare and tried to get the said land demarcated. The plaintiffs reached on the spot and objected the demarcation proceedings and thereafter the defendant No.1/present appellant avoided the said demarcation proceeding and asked the revenue officers that the same would be done afterwards. The plaintiffs doubted the act of the defendants and checked the revenue record and then they came to know that there were manipulations in the revenue record and the entries in respect of the suit property were tampered, although it is claimed that the correction in the revenue record would not create any title in favour of the defendants and the title of the plaintiffs would not be disturbed and as such they filed a suit for declaration and permanent injunction.

3.4 Written statement was filed by the defendants denying the claim of the plaintiffs.

3.5 During the course of the proceedings, an application under Order 7 Rule 11 read with Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure was filed by the