Legal Content

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 By presenting a plant a civil proceeding is instituted which is called suit. Presentation of plaint basically means delivery to a court or its officer, either personally or by a pleader.

A plant is an application before the court informing the legal wrong done by defendant. According to the plaintiff it is the document which actually contains the statement of civil wrong caused to the plaintiff. It is a statement of claims and demands in writing. Plaint is the first step taken for the civil suit it is the first process in the court.

The statements made in the plaint must state the material facts only. The plaint must describe the facts which are to be proved and not the evidence by which they are to be proved.

Order VII of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 deals with the plaint.

A plaint may be divided into mainly five parts. So, the formal parts of a plaint are as follows -

1) Heading

2) Cause Title

3) Body of plaint

4) Prayer Clause

5) Signature and Verification

Heading

On the top of every plaint, heading is given which includes name of the Court in which the suit is brought and the registration number of a suit with year.

The registration number is provided only after the presentation of plaint. So, blank - space should be left for the registration while making plaint. But, the year in which the plaint is being presented must be clearly mentioned.

Cause Title

After Heading, Cause Title is given. It basically contents the description of litigating parties. The basic informations of both the parties i.e. plaintiff and defendant are given in the cause title. there can be several plaintiffs against one defendant or one plaintiff against several defendants or several plaintiffs against several defendants. In such cases it is convenient to number them serially and arrange them in the order convenient for the presentation of the case.

The informations provided must have the following particulars -

Full name, age, occupation and complete postal address of the plaintiff/plaintiffs as well as defendant/defendants.

Body of plaint

As the name suggests, it includes the main body of the plaint. It contains the entire grievance of the plaintiff and his claim. It is made in the narrative form in the third person and divided into small paragraphs, each containing ordinarily one fact and one fact only.

Prayer Clause

It is basically the conclusion of the plaint. The prayer Clause is given after the entire narration of the story of the plaintiff. It contains the relief which the plaintiff claims, and claim may be any one or more of the different reliefs as explained regarding a civil suit.

Signature and Verification

At the end, the plaint should be signed by the plaintiff and also by his counsel. Where the plaintiff is illiterate and for such reason cannot make signature then thumb impression of plaintiff is accepted.

But for some genuine reason plaintiff is absent and unable to sign the plaint, it may be signed by any person duly authorised by him to sign the same or to sue on his behalf.

Every plaint is required to be verified under Rule 15 of Order VI of the Code of Civil Procedure. After signature, it should be verified by the plaintiff. The plaintiff must be identified by thr counsel.

In nutshell, we can say a plaint is an application made before the court about a legal wrong caused to the plaintiff by the defendant. The plaint must contain in a concise form a statement of the material facts on which the plaintiff relies for his claim. It must disclose only facts and not the law. A plaint is divided into the parts namely heading, cause title, body of plaint, prayer Clause and signature and Verification.A plaint shall be presented in proper manner. But on some grounds the plaint can also be rejected accordingly.

By Muskan Verma

Lawyer, Dibrugarh (Assam )

REFERENCES-

The Code of Civil Procedure by D.N. Mathur

Drafting, Pleading and Conveyancing by Dr. S.R. Myneni