Order VII Rule 11 scrutiny must stay confined to plaint and supporting documents; disputed facts cannot defeat a triable cause of action.

At the stage of Order VII Rule 11 CPC, the court must confine itself to the plaint averments and the plaintiff's supporting documents, read as a whole on the assumption that they are correct. Defences in the written statement, or disputed questions about the authenticity, correctness, or proof of the pleaded facts, cannot be used to reject the plaint at threshold. On the pleadings and documents here, the amended plaint disclosed assertions regarding an HUF, HUF properties, and the plaintiff's share, which were sufficient to require trial. The application could not be converted into one under Order XII Rule 6, and the impugned order was set aside with restoration of the suit.

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Issues: Whether the plaint disclosed a cause of action and could be rejected under Order VII Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, and whether the suit could be dismissed by treating the rejection application as one under Order XII Rule 6 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.

Analysis: For deciding an application under Order VII Rule 11, only the plaint averments and the documents filed by the plaintiff are relevant, and the plaint must be read as a whole on the assumption that its statements are correct. Defences raised in the written statement cannot be used to defeat the plaint at that stage. The amended plaint, taken with the supporting documents, contained averments asserting the existence of a Hindu Undivided Family, the status of the suit properties as HUF properties, and the plaintiff's claimed share, which were sufficient to require trial. Questions about the authenticity, correctness, or ultimate proof of those assertions, as well as the effect of the earlier consent decree, could not be finally decided at the threshold.

Conclusion: The plaint was not liable to be rejected for want of cause of action, and the conversion of the rejection application into one under Order XII Rule 6 was unsustainable.

Final Conclusion: The appeal succeeded, the impugned order was set aside, and the suit was restored to the stage at which the amended plaint had been taken on record.

Ratio Decidendi: At the stage of Order VII Rule 11, the Court must confine itself to the plaint and the plaintiff's supporting documents, and if those materials disclose a triable cause of action, the plaint cannot be rejected on the basis of the defendant's defence or by adjudicating disputed facts.

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