PLEADING

PLEADING
Pleading is an art, and like any other art, its perfection depends only on practice. Pleadings are the backbone of litigation. Defective and bad pleadings are too many, and they are like bad diseases.

Meaning: Pleadings are statement of parties in writing, setting out their contention and claims or counter claims giving details, so that the opposite party may know what case he/she has to meet or what is the reply to his/ her case.

Shri P.C. Mogha defines it as, "Pleadings are statements written, drawn up and filed by each party to a case stating what his contention will be at the trial and giving all such details as his opponent needs to know in order to prepare his case in answer. "

IMPORTANCE OF PLEADINGS: Jacob states, "Pleadings do not only define the issues between the parties for the final decision of the court at the trial, they manifest and exert their importance throughout the whole process of the litigation.Pleadings provide a guide for the proper mode of trial. They demonstrate upon which party the burden of proof lies, and who has the right to open the case. They also determine the range of admissible evidence which the parties should adduce at the trial. They also lay down limit on the relief that can be granted by the Court.

Golden Rules of Pleading: In England, pleading is a customary law, while in India, it is much
Codified. There are three golden rules of pleading, and they as are as under:
[1] Plead facts, not law.
[2] Plead facts, not evidence.
[3] Plead facts, and only material facts. Material facts mean relevant and important facts.
Objects of Pleadings: The object of pleadings as provided by the Supreme Court in the case of Ladle Prasad v. Kamal Distillery Co, AIR 1963 SC 1279, is to narrow down the parties to definite issues and to confine the trial within due limits so as to save time and expenses which might otherwise be needlessly thrown away.



Object of Pleadings

The whole object of pleading is to give a fair notice to each party of what the opponent's case is. Pleadings bring forth the real matters in dispute between the parties. It is necessary for the parties to know each other's stand, what facts are admitted and what denied, so that at the trial they are prepared to meet them. Pleadings also eliminate the element of surprise during the trial, besides eradicating irrelevant matters which are admitted to be true.

The facts admitted by any parties need not be pursued or proved. Thus the pleadings save the parties much bother, expense and trouble of adducing evidence in support of matters already admitted by a party, and they can concentrate their evidence to the issue framed by the Court in the light of the facts alleged by one party and denied by the other.

There is another advantage of the pleadings. The parties come to know before hand what points the opposite party will raise at the trial, and thus they are a prepared to meet them and are not taken by surprise, which would certainly be the case if there were no obligatory rules of pleadings whereby the parties are compelled to lay bare there cases before the opposite party prior to the commencement of the actual trial.On the basis of above discussion we deduce the following fundamental rules of pleading, which also have been incorporated in order VI of the Civil Procedure Code 1908.

Fundamental Rules of Pleadings
1) That a pleading shall contain, only a statement of facts, and not Law;
2) That a pleading shall contain all material facts and material facts only.
3) That a pleading shall state only the facts on which the party pleading relies and not the evidence by which they are to be proved,
4) That a pleading shall state such material facts concisely, but with precision and certainty.