The main legal point established in the judgment is that Order VII Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 applies to the plaint as a whole and cannot be invoked for partial rejection. The court clarified that if the plaint survives against certain defendants and/or properties, Order VII Rule 11 will have no application.

JUDGMENT

R.F. Nariman, J.

Delay condoned.

2. Leave granted.

3. The respondent filed a Civil Suit being CS (Comm) No. 330 of 2016 in April, 2016 praying for the following reliefs:

"a) Pass a Money Decree in a sum of Rs. 1,44,01,365/- with further interest both future and pendente lite @ 18% p.a. in favour of the Plaintiff & against the defendants, jointly & severally, till its complete realization along with cost of the present proceedings;

b) Direct the Defendants to furnish TDS Certificates for the deduction made by them or pay further amounts towards non-payment of TDS from 31/03/14 which they were liable to pay to the concerned authority along with further interest & penalty towards non-payment of TDS"

4. An application dated 08.07.2016 was filed by the Defendant(s) under Order VII Rule 11 stating that the plaint disclosed no cause of action. By the impugned judgment dated 07.09.2016, it has been held that the plaint is to be bifurcated - it discloses no cause of action against the Directors i.e. Defendant Nos. 2 to 4 but the suit is to continue against the Defendant No.1-Company. It has further been held that the defendant, in any case, is barred from filing a written statement in the suit as he has taken inordinate time to do so.

5. In our view, the impugned judgment is wrong on principle. Order VII Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 which reads as follows:

"11. Rejection of plaint.- The plaint shall be rejected in the following cases:-

(a) where it does not disclose a cause of action;

(b) where the relief claimed is undervalued, and the plaintiff, on being required by the Court to correct the valuation within a time to be fixed by the Court, fails to do so;

(c) where the relief claimed is properly valued but the plaint is written upon paper insufficiently stamped, and the plaintiff, on being required by the Court to supply the requisite stamp-paper within a time to be fixed by the Court, fails to do so;

(d) where the suit appears from the statement in the plaint to be barred by any law;

(e) where it is not filed in duplicate;

(f) where the plaintiff fails to comply with the provisions of rule 9:

Provided that the time fixed by the Court for the correction of the valuation or supplying of the requisite stamp-paper shall not be extended unless the Court, for reasons to be recorded, is satisfied that the plaintiff was prevented by any cause of an exceptional nature for correcting the valuation or supplying the requisite stamp-paper, as the case may be, within the time fixed by the Court and that refusal to extend such time would cause grave injustice to the plaintiff."

What is important to remember is that the provision refers to the "plaint" which necessarily means the plaint as a whole. It is only where the plaint as a whole does not disclose a cause of action that Order VII Rule 11 springs into being and interdicts a suit from proceeding.

6. It is settled law that the plaint as a whole alone can be rejected under Order VII Rule 11. In Maqsud Ahmad v. Mathra Datt & Co., AIR 1936 Lahore 1021 at 1022, the High Court held that a note recorded by the trial Court did not amount to a rejection of the plaint as a whole, as contemplated by the CPC, and, therefore, rejected a revision petition in the following terms:-

"There is no provision in the Civil Procedure Code for the rejection of a plaint in part, and the note recorded by the trial Court does not, therefore, amount to the rejection of the plaint as contemplated in the Civil Procedure Code."

7. Similarly, in Bansi Lal v. Som Parkash, AIR 1952 Punjab 38 at 39, the High Court held:-

"But the real question which arises in this appeal is whether there can be a partial rejection of the plaint. Mr. Chiranjiva Lal Aggarwala submits that a plaint can either be rejected as a whole or not at all, and he has relied on a statement of the law given in Mulla's Civil Procedure Code at page 612 where it is stated: "This rule (Order 7, Rule 11) does not justify the rejection of any particular portion