1] The petitioners/defendant No. 2 has filed the present civil revision under Section 115 read with Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (in short "CPC") being aggrieved by the order dated 14.08.2025 passed by the II District Judge, Dewas (M.P.) in Civil Suit No. RCSA 127/2025, whereby learned Trial Court has rejected an application under Order VII Rule 11 of CPC filed by the petitioner.

The respondent Nos. 1 to 3 filed a suit for declaration of title, partition, possession and permanent injunction stating that the suit property initially belonged to Bholasingh Thakur and Bholasingh has two sons Ramsingh and Balusingh Thakur so after death of Bholasingh Thakur, the property was mutated in the name of Ramsingh Thakur and Balusingh Thakur, thereafter suit property was transferred in the name of Girwarsingh Thakur and Ratan Singh Thakur S/o Ramsingh Thakur..

2] On being noticed, the petitioner appeared before the trial Court and filed an application under Order VII Rule 11 of CPC for dismissal of the suit was filed on following grounds :-

          "(i) There is no cause of action to file present civil suit.

          (ii) The suit is not properly valued and if properly valued, it would be outside the pecuniary jurisdiction of the Court of II District Judge, Dewas.

          (iii) There is non compliance of provisions of Order VI Rule 15 of CPC as the suit is not properly verified.

          (iv) The suit is filed for uncertain property.

          (v) There is non-compliance of mandatory provision of Order VI Rule 2 of CPC.

          (vi) The suit is not properly instituted.

          (vii) The suit is frivolous and vexatious suit disclosing no clear right to sue.

          (viii) There is non-compliance of mandatory provisions of Section 80 of CPC."

3] The plaintiff filed a reply to the said application and denied all the averments made in the application. It was also submitted that the averments of plaint disclose cause of action available to plaintiffs. The documents filed with plaint are also part of pleadings and the rights of the plaintiffs for filing this suit is revealed therein.

4] Learned Trial Court vide impugned order dated 14.08.2025 has dismissed the application on the ground that the cause of action is present in the suit. Being aggrieved by the said order, present petition has been filed.

5] Shri Vijay Kumar Asudani, learned counsel for the petitioner has argued that the Trial Court has failed to appreciate that the suit can be filed only if any legal right of respondent Nos. 1 to 3/plaintiffs is infringed. It has also not bee appreciated by the Trial Court that the issue was not about payment of Court fees but if the suit would have been valued properly then the suit would have been outside the pecuniary jurisdiction and Trial Court does not have monetary jurisdiction to adjudicate the matter. He also argued that the learned Trial Court has not considered the provisions of Section 80 of CPC, are mandatory in nature and only consequence of non-compliance of mandatory provisions of law dismissal of the suit. The impugned order suffers from perversity, irregularity and illegality. Therefore, the impugned order is liable to be set aside.

6] He has placed reliance over the judgments Asharam Dixit Vs. Harinarayan and Others reported in 2007(4) MPLJ and T. Arivandandam vs. T.V. Satyapal and another reported in (1977) 4 SCC 467 .

7] Per contra, Shri A.K. Chitale, learned Senior Counsel has opposed the prayer by submitting that while deciding the application under Order VII Rule 11 of CPC only the contents of the plaints can be referred to. None of the defences, pleadings in the written statements, evidence etc. can be referred to at this stage. He has also submitted that the plaint contains clear averments of the nature of the suit property as undivided ancestral / joint family property and plaint also contains the averments of share and title of the plaintiffs in the undivided ancestral property. In the case, the defendant/petitioner has sold more than his share of the undivided ancestral property. He has further submitted that there was never any real partition between plaintiff No. 1 Suganbai Thakur and defendant No.1 as falsely alleged by the defendant to have occurred on 20.10.2016 and so called 'Partition Deed' annexed with the petition. The Revenue Officer does not have any authority to by-pass the requirements of Section 178 of MPLRC and instead partition the property on an irrelevant 'mutation register'. Hence, it is prayed that the present petition deserves to be rejected.

8] Learned Senior Counsel has drawn attention of this Court towards Mayar (H.K.) Ltd. v. Owners & Parties, Vessel M.V. Fortune Express, (2006) 3 SCC 100, Vijai Pratap Singh Vs. Dukh Haran Nath Singh, 1962 SCC OnLine SC 56, Madanuri Sri Rama Chandra Murthy v. Syed Jalal, (2017) 13 SCC 174.

9] Having heard the arguments advanced by learned counsel for the parties, I have perused the record.

10] To decide the issue with regard to the cause of action to file suit, it is poignant to mention that the petitioner/defendant No. 2 forcibly stressed on the points that the disputed property, is not ancestral property and defendant No. 1 has full right to sell that property. To resolve the said question, it is basically a mixed question of law and facts, hence it can be decided only on merits. The said point cannot be resolved at the initial stage whether the property in question is ancestral property or self-acquired property. There is no such clear provision of law which prevents a person from filing a claim for stay on the sale of his ancestral property. Whereas the plaintiff has alleged in his application that the property in question was fraudulently acquired due to his Pradeep @ Lakhan Singh's alcohol addiction. Therefore, under these circumstances, there is no bar to filing a suit seeking cancellation of the sale deed on the grounds of fraud.

11] So far as the question of proper valuation of the suit is concerned, learned trial Court has found and mentioned in para 11 of the impugned order that the plaintiffs filed a suit for declaration of title, partition, possession and permanent injunction and to determine the value of a suit, Section 4 of the Act provides that the assessment of relief in certain suits relating to land shall not exceed the value of the land. Where the assessment is made for jurisdiction, it shall not exceed the value of the land or interest as determined by the rules and under Section 8 of the Suits Valuation Act, the circumstances in which the value for the purpose of computing Court Fees shall be the same as the value for the purpose of jurisdiction. In the case at hand, the plaintiff has assessed the suit for a maximum of two crore twenty four lakh six thousand rupees based on the consideration of the sale deed. Therefore, the plaintiff has assessed the maximum Court Fee based on the consideration of the registered sale deed, which appears to be appropriate given the relief sought by the plaintiff.

12] As far as the objections raised by the petitioner/defendant No. 2 in the application regarding defects in pleadings and alleged non-compliance with Order VI Rule 15, Order VIII Rule 3, Order VI Rule 2, and Section 80 of the Code of Civil Procedure have been duly considered. Any defect in pleadings is curable and cannot be a ground for rejection of the plaint. Although no prior notice under Section 80 CPC was served upon the Government of M.P., which has been impleaded as defendant No. 3, no adverse order has been passed against it without notice. Since notice has now been served, the plaint cannot be rejected on this technical ground. During the pendency of the suit, Defendant No. 2 has created third-party rights by selling portions of the disputed land, thereby tilting the balance of convenience in favour of the plaintiff and indicating the likelihood of irreparable injury.

13] At the outset, it is well settled that while considering an application under Order VII Rule 11 CPC , the Court has to confine itself strictly to the averments made in the plaint and the documents filed along with it, and the defence taken by the defendant or the disputed questions of fact cannot be looked into. This principle stands authoritatively reiterated in Mayar (H.K.) Ltd. (Supra), wherein the Hon'ble Apex Court in para Nos. 12 and 13 held that for the purpose of Order VII Rule 11 of CPC, the plaint must be read as a whole and if it discloses a cause of action, the plaint cannot be rejected merely because the defendant disputes the claim or raises a strong defence.

14] Similarly, in the case of Vijai Pratap Singh (Supra) , Hon'ble Apex Court categorically held that the Court has no jurisdiction to consider the correctness or otherwise of the allegations in the plaint or the defence set up by the defendant while dealing with an application under Order VII Rule 11 of CPC.

15] In the case of Madanuri Sri Rama Chandra Murthy (Supra), Hon'ble Apex Court, in para 7, has reiterated that rejection of plaint is a drastic power and can be exercised only when the conditions enumerated under Order VII Rule 11 of CPC are strictly fulfilled, and not otherwise.

16] Applying the aforesaid settled principles to the facts of the case in hand, this Court finds that the plaint, on a plain reading, contains specific averments regarding the nature of the suit property as ancestral/joint family property, the lineage from Bholasingh Thakur, the shares claimed by the plaintiffs and the alleged act of the defendants in dealing with the property beyond their share. These averments, if taken to be correct at this stage, clearly disclose a cause of action. Therefore, the Trial Court has rightly held that the plaint cannot be rejected under Order VII Rule 11 of CPC.

17] As regards the reliance placed by learned counsel for the petitioner on State of Maharashtra v. Chander Kant (Supra) a n d T. Arivandandam (Supra), there can be no dispute with the proposition that frivolous and vexatious suits, which are manifestly meritless and do not disclose a clear right to sue, deserve to be nipped in the bud. However, the operative observations in T. Arivandandam (supra) apply only where the plaint is a clear abuse of the process of Court and does not disclose any real cause of action. In the present case, the plaint cannot be said to be illusory, vexatious or bereft of material facts so as to attract the said principle.

18] The objections relating to valuation, pecuniary jurisdiction, alleged non-compliance of Order VI Rule 2 and Rule 15 of CPC or Section 80 of CPC involve mixed questions of law and fact and cannot be conclusively adjudicated at the stage of Order VII Rule 11 of CPC, as rightly appreciated by the Trial Court. However, the petitioner is free to raise the point before the trial Court whether there is collusion between the plaintiffs and the defendant No. 1.

19] In view of the above discussion, present petition stands dismissed and the impugned order is hereby affirmed.