APHC010452102025 IN THE HIGH COURT OF ANDHRA PRADESH Tuesday,the eighteenth day of November two thousand and twenty five The Honourable Civil Revision Petition Between: Bijinavemula Tholisamma and and Dusani Sivamma and Counsel for the petitioner 1. N. Sriram Murthy Counsel for the respondent 1. Varun Byreddy The Court made the IN THE HIGH COURT OF ANDHRA PRADESH AT AMARAVATI (Special Original Jurisdiction) the eighteenth day of November two thousand and twenty five Present The Honourable Ms. Justice B. S. Bhanumathi Civil Revision Petition No.2388 of 2025 Bijinavemula Tholisamma and others ... Dusani Sivamma and others ...Respondents etitioners: Sriram Murthy espondents: The Court made the following: IN THE HIGH COURT OF ANDHRA PRADESH [3311] the eighteenth day of November two thousand and twenty five Bhanumathi ...Petitioners Respondents 2 BSB, J C.R.P.No.2388 of 2025 ORDER: This Civil Revision Petition is directed against the orders, dated 05.08.2025, of the learned III Additional District Judge, Kurnool, at Nandyal, dismissing the application in I.A.No.918 of 2023 in O.S.No.2 of 2023 filed by the defendants under Order VII, Rule 11(d) C.P.C. to reject the plaint with exemplary costs and to initiate contempt proceedings against the respondents / plaintiffs. 2. The case of the defendants in support of the request for rejection of the plaint, as stated in the affidavit of the defendant No.3, in brief, is as follows:- a. On 29.11.1963, Nagi Reddy (father of plaintiffs Nos.1 to 3 and grandfather of plaintiffs Nos.4 & 5) and Nagarlapati @ Bijanavemula Linga Murthy Reddy (grandfather of defendants Nos.2 to 7 and father- in-law of defendnat No.1) verbally partitioned their properties in the presence of the village elders, by name, M.Chanchi Reddy, G.Mahanandi Reddy and K. Narasimha Rao who are now no more. The said oral partition has been acted upon and since then, they are in peaceful possession of their respective properties. Accordingly, mutation was also effected in the revenue records. b. Later on, N. Nagi Reddy died intestate on 03.04.1965 and Nagarlapati @ Bijanavemula Linga Murthy Reddy also died on 21.04.1980 leaving behind the defendants as his sole and exclusive legal heirs and thus, the defendants are enjoying the estate being the absolute owners of their respective properties. The revenue authorities also issued pattadar pass book and adangals, 1-B Namoona in respect of the properties. After the demise of N.Nagi Reddy, no one questioned the oral partition. 3 BSB, J C.R.P.No.2388 of 2025 c. The plaintiffs filed a false suit after lapse of nearly 60 years of oral partition. As per the oral partition, both the plaintiffs and defendants are enjoying their respective properties. d. The suit is liable to be dismissed at the threshold as the boundaries mentioned in the plaint schedule are all wrong. The plaintiffs, without having any knowledge about the properties of the defendants, intentionally showed the same properties twice and thus, there are double entries of the same property. e. The oral partition is admitted by the plaintiffs before the Tahsildar, Nandyal. It is settled law that admitted facts need not be proved. The plaintiffs admitted the oral partition and the oral partition is binding on them. Therefore, the suit for partition afer lapse of 60 years of oral partition between brothers, by name, B. Nagi Reddy and B. Linga Murthy Reddy is not legally maintainable and the plaintiffs cannot reagitate the same issue and they have no locus standi to file the suit. Hence, the suit is barred by limitation and is liable to be dismissed in limine. 3. The respondents / plaintiffs filed counter denying the petition averments and stating that the defendants have to prove the verbal partition and without proving the same, the defendants cannot repeatedly make baseless allegations. There is a clear cause of action and the petitioners / defendants have no right to file the present petition to reject the plaint. 4. After hearing both the parties, the trial Court dismissed the petition observing that while deciding an application under Order VII Rule 11 C.P.C., only the averments in the plaint are to be looked into and not the averments in the written statement. 4 BSB, J C.R.P.No.2388 of 2025 5. Aggrieved thereby, the defendants preferred this revision petition. 6. To examine the question as to whether the plaint is liable to be rejected or not, it is necessary to examine the plaint averments independently, because, while considering an application under Order VII Rule 11 of the Code, the Court has to examine the averments in the plaint and the pleas taken in defence now by the defendants would be irrelevant. 7. The main contention of the revison petitioners / defendants is that the plaint must disclose cause of action and except the notice, no further document was filed, and therefore, even if the plaint is taken as it is, no cause of action was disclosed and the High Court for the State of Telangana has not numbered the suit under similar circumstances as all documents necessary had not been filed and the High Court upheld the rejection of the plaint in the case of Manchikatla Prabhakar Vs. Manchikatla Venkata Swamy and others1. Manchikatla Venkata Swamy and others1. It is also contended that the document admittedly executed by the plaintiffs and filed by the petitioners were not considered by the trial Court, though office was directed to place the documents and those docuemnts clearly show the admisson of the earlier partition which is the case of the petitioners and further they are required to be examined to show that the plaintiffs cleverly drafted the pleadings by suppression of material facts only to file the suit for partition. Therefore, it is vehemently contended that the trial Court committed error in deciding the petition without looking into the documents for the purpose of ascertaining that the averments in the plaint are mere clever drafting to create an illusory cause of acton. In this regard, the learned counsel for the revision petitioners refered to the 1 2025(2) ALT 182 5 BSB, J C.R.P.No.2388 of 2025 decision of the Supreme Court in Dahiben Vs. Arvindbhai Kalyanji Bhanusali (Gajra) dead through legal representatives and others2, wherein documents were perused to examine whether there is real cause of action or not. It is further contended that dismissing the petition with the observation that question of limitation is a mixed question of fact and law is erroneous and it is further contended that even question of law can be examined based on the admitted facts in the plaint and found from the record concerned and plaint can be rejected if the suit is barred by limitation. Learned counsel for the petitioners further submitted that description of the properties are in duplication and therefore, there is no cause of action in respect of all items of plaint schedule properties and that even there are wrong boundaries mentioned in the schedule. 8. In reply, the learned counsel for the respondents / plaintifs submitted that duplication of entries of items of properties in the plaint schedule or wrong boundaries is not a ground to reject the plaint and that self canvassed facts or disputed facts cannot be a ground to reject the plaint. Learned counsel further contended that the averments in the plaint and the documents annexed to the plaint alone are to be considered to decide an application filed under Order VII, Rule 11 C.P.C. and the defence taken in the written statement or docuemnts filed by the defendants cannot be looked into and moreover, the documents sought to be filed by the petiioners were not marked by the trial Court so as to consider them by this Court in the revision petition, more particularly as they were not even filed before this Court along with a necessary petition. It is further submitted that except filing documents before the trial Court, the petitoners had not pursued before 2 (2020) 7 Supreme Court Cases 366 6 BSB, J C.R.P.No.2388 of 2025 the trial Court and therefore, at any cost, the documents mentioned by the petitioners cannot be considered. 9. Referring to the reply notice, the learned cousnel for the respondents submitted that there is a mention in the reply notice that there is an unregistered partition of the year 1999 which ascertion would go against the contention of the defendants that there is an oral partition in the year 1960 itself, and therefore, it is a fact to be tried, in detail, and cannot be treated as an admission on the part of the plaintiffs regarding the alleged oral partition in the year 1960 basing on some documents relied on by the defendants and reject the plaint. Therefore, he vehemently contended that there is no ground to interfere with the order of the trial Court. 10. The learned counsel for the revision petitioners has drawn the attention of this Court to the endorsement made by the trial Court on the petition and would contend that though there is an endorsement made by the trial Court, the same was not considered. The learned counsel pointed out material particulars in certain documents such as, suit in O.S.No.582 of 2018, O.S.No.1060 of 2019 and registered sale deed, dated 26.12.1996, wherein there is a reference to an oral partition held in the year 1960 basing on which claims were made by the plaintiffs herein. Therefore, he vehemently contended that the plaintiffs approached the Court suppressing the material facts which would nullify the cause of action for filing the suit. 11. The learned counsel referred to the decisions of the Supreme Court in the following cases: 7 BSB, J C.R.P.No.2388 of 2025 (i) In Uma Devi and others Vs. Anand Kumar and others3, it was held at paragraph Nos.15 to 17 as follows: “15. The learned Senior Counsel for the appellant- defendants, Mr Sundaram, relied upon the decision of this Court in Shri Mukund Bhavan Trust v. Chhatrapati Udayan Raje Pratapsinh Maharaj Bhonsle (2024) 15 SCC 675 : 2024 SCC OnLine SC 3844 to substantiate the contention that the suit was barred by limitation. It was observed as follows : “22. When a portion of the property has been conveyed by court auction and registered in the first instance and when another portion has been conveyed by a registered sale deed in 1952, there is a constructive notice from the date of registration and the presumption under Section 3 of the Transfer of Property Act, comes into operation. The possession, in the present case, also has been rested with the appellant before several decades, which operates as notice of title. … 23.-24. *** 25. Continuing further with the plea of limitation, the Courts below have held that the question of the suit being barred by limitation can be decided at the time of trial as the question of limitation is a mixed question of law and facts. Though the question of limitation generally is mixed question of law and facts, when upon meaningful reading of the plaint, the court can come to a conclusion that under the given circumstances, after 3 (2025) 5 Supreme Court Cases 198 8 BSB, J C.R.P.No.2388 of 2025 dissecting the vices of clever drafting creating an illusion of cause of action, the suit is hopelessly barred and the plaint can be rejected under Order 7 Rule 11.” 16. In Madanuri Sri Rama Chandra Murthy v. Syed Jalal (2017) 13 SCC 174 : (2017) 5 SCC (Civ) 602, this Court laid down the scope of Order 7 Rule 11CPC : (SCC pp. 178-79, para 7) “7. The plaint can be rejected under Order 7 Rule 11 if conditions enumerated in the said provision are fulfilled. It is needless to observe that the power under Order 7 Rule 11CPC can be exercised by the Court at any stage of the suit. The relevant facts which need to be looked into for deciding the application are the averments of the plaint only. If on an entire and meaningful reading of the plaint, it is found that the suit is manifestly vexatious and meritless in the sense of not disclosing any right to sue, the court should exercise power under Order 7 Rule 11CPC. Since the power conferred on the Court to terminate civil action at the threshold is drastic, the conditions enumerated under Order 7 Rule 11CPC to the exercise of power of rejection of plaint have to be strictly adhered to. The averments of the plaint have to be read as a whole to find out whether the averments disclose a cause of action or whether the suit is barred by any law. It is needless to observe that the question as to whether the suit is barred by any law, would always depend upon the facts and circumstances of each case. The averments in the written statement as well as the contentions of the defendant are wholly immaterial while 9 BSB, J C.R.P.No.2388 of 2025 considering the prayer of the defendant for rejection of the plaint. Even when the allegations made in the plaint are taken to be correct as a whole on their face value, if they show that the suit is barred by any law, or do not disclose cause of action, the application for rejection of plaint can be entertained and the power under Order 7 Rule 11CPC can be exercised. If clever drafting of the plaint has created the illusion of a cause of action, the court will nip it in the bud at the earliest so that bogus litigation will end at the earlier stage.” 17. In Dahiben v. Arvindbhai Kalyanji Bhanusali (2020) 7 SCC 366 : (2020) 4 SCC (Civ) 128, it is stated as under : (SCC p. 377, para 23) “23. … 23.3. The underlying object of Order 7 Rule 11(a) is that if in a suit, no cause of action is disclosed, or the suit is barred by limitation under Rule 11(d), the Court would not permit the plaintiff to unnecessarily protract the proceedings in the suit. In such a case, it would be necessary to put an end to the sham litigation, so that further judicial time is not wasted.” (ii) In Ramisetty Venkatanna & Another Vs. Nasyam Jamal Saheb & others4, it was held as follows: ‘’ Applying the law laid down by this Court in the aforesaid decisions on the applicability of Order VII Rule XI to the facts of the case on hand, we are of the opinion that the plaint ought to have been rejected in exercise of powers under Order VII Rule XI(a) and (d) of CPC being 4 2023 LawSuit (SC) 452 10 BSB, J C.R.P.No.2388 of 2025 vexatious, illusory cause of action and barred by limitation. By clever drafting and not asking any relief with respect to partition deed dated 11.03.1953, the plaintiffs have tried to circumvent the provision of the Limitation Act and have tried to maintain the suit which is nothing but abuse of process of court and the law.” 12. Thus, it is settled law that a plaint can be rejected in case of clever drafting to create an illusory cause of action. For this purpose, it is necessary to carefully examine the contentions of both sides, in detail. That apart, in a suit for partition, even if the defendants remain ex parte, a Court has to examine whether the plaintiffs could make out a case for partition establishing that the property sought to be partitioned are joint family properties and liable for partition for the enquiry of which the doucments relevant in support of the same are required to be filed. 13. In the present case, apart from all the above, as rightly contended by the revision petitioners, there are duplication of entries of items with regard to Item Nos.6, 8, 9 and 11 (in page No.36), item Nos.20 & 24 (in page No.38), item No.31 (in page No.39). As such, a detailed enquiry is required in the present case in I.A.No.918 of 2023. Therefore, dismissing the petition with mere observations that there is no merit in the petition in the light of the contentions of both parties and unless and until full-fledged trial is conducted, the plaint cannot be rejected at the threshold, is not proper exercise of jurisdiction under Order VII Rule 11 C.P.C. Though the ground for rejection of plaint is that the suit is barred by limitation as the oral partition is said to be made in the year 1960, several aspects noted above shall also to be considered for deciding I.A.No.918 of 2023 in the light of such ground taken. So, this Court is of the view that the trial Court has not passed the order on thorough 11 BSB, J C.R.P.No.2388 of 2025 examination of all the aspects required to be examined. The order impugned requires interference by setting aside the same with a direction to the trial Court to decide the petition afresh giving adequate opportunity to both the parties to advance their arguments afresh after hearing on the aspect that the documents sought to be filed by the petitioners can also be considered or not for the purpose of decision in this petition. 14. In the result, the revision petition is allowed setting aside the order, dated 05.08.2025, of the learned III Additional District Judge, Kurnool, at Nandyal, in I.A.No.918 of 2023 in O.S.No.2 of 2023 and the trial Court is directed to decide the petition afresh giving adequate opportunity to both the parties to advance their arguments after hearing on the aspect that the documents sought to be filed by the petitioners can also be considered or not. There shall be no order as to costs. Miscellaneous petitions pending, if any, shall stand closed. ___________________ B. S. BHANUMATHI, J 18.11.2025 RAR