Court Can't Travel Beyond Pleadings In A Suit To Frame Issues: Sikkim High Court

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10 Sept 2022 12:00 PM IST

  • Court Cant Travel Beyond Pleadings In A Suit To Frame Issues: Sikkim High Court

    The Sikkim High Court has held that trial courts can frame issues with regard to only those pleadings which are asserted by one party and denied by other. Justice Bhaskar Raj Pradhan observed that the suit proceedings cannot travel beyond the pleadings placed on record by the parties.The observation comes in a case where the trail court had framed an issue in a property dispute, to...

    The Sikkim High Court has held that trial courts can frame issues with regard to only those pleadings which are asserted by one party and denied by other. Justice Bhaskar Raj Pradhan observed that the suit proceedings cannot travel beyond the pleadings placed on record by the parties.
    The observation comes in a case where the trail court had framed an issue in a property dispute, to determine whether the suit property was sold to meet legal necessity of the joint family of the plaintiffs.
    The Defendant to the suit had moved the High Court, assailing the framing of this issue.
    The High Court noted that the impugned issue was framed by the Trail Court in spite of noting that there were no pleadings that the property was sold out of legal necessity. It observed,
    "It is fundamental that issues are framed when material preposition of fact or law is affirmed by one party and denied by the other...The learned Trial Court has categorically held that there is no pleading or denial of legal necessity. If that be so then the issue of legal necessity was not necessary."

    Reliance was placed on Ponnayal alias Lakshmi vs. Karuppannan, (2019) 11 SCC 800, where the Supreme Court had held that Civil Suits are decided on the basis of pleadings and the issues framed and the parties to the suit cannot be permitted to travel beyond the pleadings.

    In view of the above, the High Court framed a issue that it deemed necessary in perusal of the pleadings, and directed the trial court to accordingly proceed with the trial.

    Case title : Shri Kharka Singh Chettri, v Shri Mangal Chandra Rai and connected matters

    Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Sik) 9 

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