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Plea Under Order 2 Rule 2 CPC Sustainable Only If Plaint In Earlier Suit Is Proved


Order 2 Rule 2 of Code of Civil Procedure

Suit to include the whole claim.- (1) Every suit shall include the whole of the claim which the plaintiff is entitled to make in respect of the cause of action; but a plaintiff may relinquish any portion of his claim in order to bring the suit within the jurisdiction of any Court.

(2) Relinquishment of part of claim—Where a plaintiff omits to sue in respect of, or intentionally relinquishes, any portion of his claim, he shall not afterwards sue in respect of the portion so omitted or relinquished.

(3) Omission to sue for one of several reliefs—A person entitled to more than one relief in respect of the same cause of action may sue for all or any of such reliefs, but if he omits except with the leave of the court, to sue for all such reliefs, he shall not afterwards sue for any relief so omitted.

Restating the law laid down in Gurbux Singh vs. Bhooralal, the Supreme Court, in Jayantilal Chimanlal Patel vs. Vadilal Purushottamdas Patel, has said it is mandatory that to sustain a plea under Order 2 Rule 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the defendant is obliged under law to prove the plaint and the proof has to be as per the law of evidence.

Just as in the case of a plea of res judicata which cannot be established in the absence on the record of the judgment and decree which is pleaded as estoppel, we consider that a plea under Order 2 Rule 2 of the Civil Procedure Code cannot be made out except on proof of the plaint in the previous suit the filing of which is said to create the bar.

As the plea is basically founded on the identity of the cause of action in the two suits the defence which raises the bar has necessarily to establish the cause of action in the previous suit. The cause of action would be the facts which the plaintiff had then alleged to support the right to the relief that he claimed. Without placing before the Court the plaint in which those facts were alleged, the defendant cannot invite the Court to speculate or infer by a process of deduction what those facts might be with
reference to the reliefs which were then claimed.”

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