Appeal against Single Judge's dismissal of an application rejecting a plaint. Court held court fee objections do not warrant rejection; bar under Delhi Land Reforms Act does not apply to fraud allegations; suit not barred by limitation. Appeal dismissed.
Impugned order dismissing application under Order VII Rule 11 CPC was affirmed.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
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DEVENDER YADAV AND ORS. .....Respondents Through: Mr. Pawan R. Upadhyay, Mr. Varun Sharma, Mr. Anmol Wadhwa, Mr. Piyush Gupta and Mr. Chetan Goyat, Advocates.
CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ANIL KSHETARPAL HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE HARISH VAIDYANATHAN SHANKAR
J U D G M E N T
ANIL KSHETARPAL, J.
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FACTUAL MATRIX
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not to interfere with the Plaintiff‟s peaceful physical possession of the suit properties. The respective Defendants have already filed their written statements which are on record.
6.1 That the ancestors of the Plaintiffs were the land owners and owned several properties and lands in Delhi admeasuring around 136 bigha and 11 biswa. The subject matter of dispute is 68 bigha, 3 bishwa of land belonging to the ancestors of the Plaintiffs and an area of 4 bigha 16 biswa situated in Khasra no. 1932 which is exclusive property of the family of the late Sohan Lal (father of the Plaintiff Nos. 1 to 5). These are collectively referred to as the “suit properties” hereinafter.
6.2 The late Ganga Sahai, forefather of the Plaintiffs Nos.1 to 5, had inherited the aforestated lands. He had three sons namely Man Singh, Ram Lal and Ramji Lal. Late Sohan Lal (father of the Plaintiffs) is the grand son of late Man Singh and he was the owner to the extent of 1/18th share in the suit premises as detailed above. After the demise of Sh. Sohan Lal on 25.01.2000, the properties got divided equally among the Plaintiffs Nos.1 to 5 as they were the only legal heirs.
6.3 The Plaintiffs along with the other members of the family, jointly owned the properties as detailed in Para 6.1 above. The said properties are ancestral in nature and belong to the Plaintiffs and the coparceners of the family, since they are the descendants of late
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Ganga Sahai. The lands still exist in their common name and there is no division/partition in the family in respect of their ancestral properties.
6.4 After the demise of late Sohan Lal, the Plaintiffs accordingly applied for substitution of their name in the revenue records and after considering the facts and circumstances, the Tehsildar (South-West), vide order No. M-613/03-04 dated 02.07.2004, recorded the necessary changes in the revenue records and substituted the name of the Plaintiffs at the place of his father.
6.5 Defendant no. 8 has filed an Appeal against the order of the Tehsildar for not mutating his name in the revenue records as the Defendant no.8 has also entered into Agreement to Sell with Late father of Plaintiff Nos 1-5 and other villagers of Village Rajokari, New Delhi with a vision to develop another Farm House.
6.6 The Plaintiffs accordingly filed a reply to Appeal dated 27.02.2008, wherein the Plaintiffs averred that there was no sale ever effected in favour of the Defendant No.8 and others and the documents as such, are forged, fabricated and illegal documents.
7.1 The Plaintiffs have frivolously filed the Plaint after 15 years of its sale on the ground that the said suit land is ancestral in nature and hence their respective fathers had no right to sell the same.
7.2 The suit has not been valued properly for the purpose of Court
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Fee for the reason that the relief of Declaration and Cancellation are different and liable to be valued separately but had been clubbed together.
7.3 The Plaintiff has also failed to explain as on what basis the suit land belonged to a Joint Undivided Family („JUF‟). The fact that they themselves are claiming shares in the suit land shows that the suit land stood partitioned between the Bhumidars.
7.5 The Plaintiffs have failed to file the suit within a period of three years from the date of execution and registration of the documents namely GPAs and Sale Deeds, despite them having knowledge of the same.
CONTENTIONS OF THE PARTIES
9.1 It is contended that the LSJ has erred in dealing with the aspect of court fees as it had already been settled vide order dated 11.07.2014 and the same has been affirmed by the Supreme Court vide order
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dated 08.10.2014. The order directed the Plaintiffs to deposit the Court Fee on the market price, as each sale deed is in respect of a separate piece of land and each sale deed has to be valued separately at its market value. Therefore, LSJ by commenting upon the issue already settled has exceeded in her jurisdiction.
9.2 The findings of the LSJ to the effect that father of the Plaintiffs Nos.1 to 5 held the property as Hindu Undivided Family („HUF‟)/coparcenary, has also been challenged on the ground that, it is settled law that any interest which is inherited by a person after the year 1956, is his separate and absolute property. With regards to this, it is a matter of record that father of the Plaintiffs acquired the interest from his father Sh. Sheo Singh in the year 1984.
9.3 The Defendant No.8 asserted that as the suit property is not ancestral in nature, the Plaintiffs have no cause of action in their favour. Furthermore, the Defendant No.8 asserted that the LSJ also failed to appreciate the aforementioned contentions as well as the fact that Plaintiffs had no occasion to come straight to the Civil Court seeking Declaration and Cancellation of GPA and sale deeds as per Section 185 & 186 of the Delhi Land Reforms Act, 1954 [hereinafter referred to as “DLR Act”].
10.1 The Plaintiffs herein contend that no sale was ever made by their father directly or indirectly. The Plaintiffs also averred that the Defendants have developed a false story on fabricated documents and
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evidence and reiterates that they are in possession of the land and have never been dispossessed since beginning, as the suit property is their ancestral property.
10.2 In addition to the aforestated submissions, the Plaintiffs contended that the sales have been made on the basis of GPA executed in favour of a third party who was an outsider and vehemently averred that the sale deeds have been executed illegally and fraudulently. The interesting point to be noted here is that the present application has neither been filed by an authorized person nor any authority letter in favour of the Defendant No.8 is placed on record.
10.3 It is further contended by the Plaintiff that the provisions of Hindu Succession Act, 1956 are applicable to the case of lands to which allegedly DLR Act is claimed to be applicable by the Defendants. Thus, the present suit is not barred by the DLR Act.
ANALYSIS & FINDINGS
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regulated by clauses (a) to (f) listed underOrder VII Rule 11 of the CPC, 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 returned 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 from 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.]”
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Sardool Singh v. Randhir Singh & Others1 , wherein the Court observedunder Paragraph 7 as under:
“ 7. Where the executant of a deed wants it to be annulled, he has to seek cancellation of the deed. But if a non-executant seeks annulment of a deed, he has to seek a declaration that the deed is invalid, or nonest, or illegal or that it is not binding on him. The difference between a prayer for cancellation and declaration in regard to a deed of transfer/conveyance, can be brought out by the following illustration relating to A' and B' -- two brothers. A' executes a sale deed in favour of C'. Subsequently A' wants to avoid the sale. A' has to sue for cancellation of the deed. On the other hand, if B', who is not the executant of the deed, wants to avoid it, he has to sue for a declaration that the deed executed by A' is invalid/void and non- est/ illegal and he is not bound by it. In essence both may be suing to have the deed set aside or declared as non-binding. But the form is different and court fee is also different. If A', the executant of the deed, seeks cancellation of the deed, he has to pay ad-valorem court fee on the consideration stated in the sale deed. If B', who is a non-executant, is in possession and sues for a declaration that the deed is null or void and does not bind him or his share, he has to merely pay a fixed court fee of Rs. 19.50 under Article 17 (iii) of the Second Schedule of the Act./But if `B', a non- executant, is not in possession, and he seeks not only a declaration that the sale deed is invalid, but also the consequential relief of possession, he has to pay an ad-valorem court fee as provided under Section 7(iv)(c) of the Act.”
(Emphasis supplied)
14 . Notably, the issue of Court fee, even if previously adjudicated, does not go to the maintainability of the Plaint for the purposes of Order VII Rule 11 of the CPC. Non-payment of proper court fee may invite directions for correction, but cannot lead to rejection of Plaint unless the defect is incurable or the Plaintiff refuses to remove the deficiency in payment of ad valorem court fee, which is not the case in the present suit. Therefore, this objection does not warrant the rejection of the Plaint.
1 (201) 12 SCC 112
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“ 27. A cause of action, thus, means every fact, which if traversed, it would be necessary for the plaintiff to prove in order to support his right to a judgement of the Court. In other words, it is a bundle of facts which taken with the law applicable to them gives the plaintiff a right to relief against the defendant. It must include some act done by the defendant since in the absence of such an act no cause of action can possibly accrue. It is not limited to the actual infringement of the right sued on but includes all the material facts on which it is founded.”
(Emphasis supplied)
“23. Whether a plaint discloses the cause of action as required under Order 7 Rule 11 CPC, is a question which is a distinct and different
2 2005 (10) SCC 51
3 C.S. No.682 of 2014
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one from the question as to whether the plaintiff can succeed in the suit based on such cause of action. It is needless to state that only the latter question involves the consideration of other allied questions with regard to the maintainability of the suit as well as the "locusstandi" of the plaintiff to file the suit. In my considered view, these questions, namely the maintainability of the suit or the locus-standi of the plaintiff to maintain such suit, are the questions which are to be relegated to be considered and decided along with the other issues on merits, after conducting trial, since these questions also involve consideration of facts and law. That is why the provision made under Order 7 Rule 11 CPC for rejection of plaint, specifically reads that the plaint shall be rejected on one of the grounds, namely where it does not disclose the "cause of action". In other words, the above said provision nowhere contemplates the rejection of plaint if the suit is not maintainable, or on the ground that the plaintiff is not having locus-standi to file the same. Thus, in my considered view, the cause of action and locus-standi are two different aspects of the suit and insofar as the application filed under Order 7 Rule 11 CPC is concerned, the question of locus-standi cannot be a ground for rejecting the plaint.
(Emphasis supplied)
4 2018 SCC OnLine Del 9315
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a Karta or a coparcener ceases to be part of the HUF, or that the land standing in the name of the Karta/coparcener becomes his selfacquired property merely because of the vesting and statutory scheme under the Act.Thus, HUFs continue to exist and the property in question does not become a self-acquired property of the Bhumidhar post-1956 inheritance.
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a deed wants it to be annulled, one has to seek cancellation of the deed under Section 31 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963. But if a nonexecutant seeks annulment of a deed, the appropriate relief is to seek a declaration under section 34 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963, that the deed is invalid or not binding upon him.
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Arivanandam v. T.V. Satyapal &Anr.5 , thus, saving the Defendants onerous and hazardous task of contesting a non- maintainable suit during the course of protracted litigation and where the suit was instituted without proper authority. However, the Court cannot conduct a roving & fishing enquiry to find out whether the averments made in the Plaint claiming how the suit was in time, are true or false. The Courts needs to be very cautious in dealing with the requests for dismissal of suits at the threshold, otherwise a meritorious suit may end in dismissal.
CONCLUSION
ANIL KSHETARPAL, J.
HARISH VAIDYANATHAN SHANKAR, J.
NOVEMBER 21, 2025 jai/ra
5 (1977) 4 SCC 467
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3 issues framed by the court
Whether non-payment of court fee and potential want of locus standi justify rejection of a plaint under Order VII Rule 11 CPC at the threshold.
Whether a suit for declaration and cancellation of sale deeds based on fraud is barred by Sections 185 and 186 of the Delhi Land Reforms Act.
Whether the suit is barred by the Limitation Act given the alleged date of discovery of the sale deeds.
Colour shows how this judgement treated each authority
Suhrid Singh Alias Sardool Singh v. Randhir Singh & OthersReferred¶74
(201) 12 SCC 112
Swamy Atmananda v. Sri Ramakrishna TapovanamRelied on¶86
2005 (10) SCC 51 · Who else cites this
Tim Boyd v. Kesiraju Krishna Phani & Ors.Relied on¶89
C.S. No.682 of 2014
Yoginder Singh & Another v. Sumit Gahlot and OthersRelied on¶18
2018 SCC OnLine Del 9315 · Who else cites this
T. Arivanandam v. T.V. Satyapal & Anr.Referred¶111
(1977) 4 SCC 467 · Who else cites this
3 provisions across 2 enactments
RAMESH CHANDRA AGARWAL
DEVENDER YADAV AND ORS.
ANIL KSHETARPAL
HARISH VAIDYANATHAN SHANKAR
As recorded by the court registry
An appeal to a Division Bench against an order made by a single judge on the original side of the High Court.
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
