Pleadings

In one line

A pleading is the written statement of a party's case, and Order VI lays down one governing rule for all of them: state the material facts, and nothing else.

Why the Code regulates this so tightly

A trial can only be fair if each side knows in advance what case it has to meet. Surprise is the enemy: a defendant who first learns the real allegation in the witness box cannot answer it, and a court cannot frame issues on a case that has not been stated.

So pleadings do three jobs at once. They define the dispute, so the court knows what to try. They give notice, so neither side is ambushed. And they fix the boundaries, so that at the end nobody can be given relief on a case never pleaded.

That last point is the one to carry into every other chapter of this Module. Issues are framed from the pleadings, evidence is led on the issues, and the judgment answers the issues. If a fact never entered the pleadings, it never enters the judgment.

What counts as a pleading

Rule 1: "Pleading" shall mean plaint or written statement.

That is the whole definition, and it is narrower than students expect. An affidavit is not a pleading. An application is not a pleading. A written argument is not a pleading. Only the plaint and the written statement, together with anything the Code treats as one, such as a written statement in answer to a counterclaim.

The governing rule: material facts, not evidence

Rule 2(1): every pleading shall contain, and contain only, a statement in a concise form of the material facts on which the party relies for his claim or defence, but not the evidence by which they are to be proved.

Take the three commands separately, because each is a separate marking point.

Material facts, not law. The facts that constitute the cause of action or the defence. A party pleads what happened, not which section entitles him to relief. Getting the legal label wrong does not sink a properly pleaded case.

Facts, not evidence. This is the distinction the rule exists for, and it is the one most often asked. Plead that the goods delivered were defective; do not plead that the storekeeper will say so and that there is a photograph. Older writers put it as facta probanda against facta probantia: the facts to be proved, not the facts by which they are proved.

Concise form, and "contain only". A pleading that buries the case in narrative fails the rule as surely as one that omits the case.

The formal requirements

Rule 2(2): every pleading shall, when necessary, be divided into paragraphs, numbered consecutively, each allegation being, so far as convenient, in a separate paragraph.