Application for rejection of plaint can be filed at any stage and it shall be disposed before proceeding with trial.

We are afraid that the stand taken by the High Court in the impugned order cannot be appreciated. An application under Order VII Rule 11 of the CPC can be filed at any stage, as held by this Court in Sopan Sukhdeo Sable and others v. Assistant Charity Commissioner and others … “The trial court can exercise the power at any stage of the suit – before registering the plaint or after issuing summons to the defendant at any time before the conclusion of the trial. …”. The only restriction is that the consideration of the application for rejection should not be on the basis of the allegations made by the defendant in his written statement or on the basis of the allegations in the application for rejection of the plaint. The court has to consider only the plaint as a whole, and in case, the entire plaint comes under the situations covered by Order VII Rule 11 (a) to (f) of the CPC, the same has to be rejected.”

Once an application is filed under Order VII Rule 11 of the CPC, the court has to dispose of the same before proceeding with the trial. There is no point or sense in proceeding with the trial of the case, in case the plaint (Election Petition in the present case) is only to be rejected at the threshold. Therefore, the defendant is entitled to file the application for rejection before filing his written statement. In case, the application is rejected, the defendant is entitled to file his written statement thereafter (See Saleem Bhai andothers v. State of Maharashtra and others). But once an application for rejection is filed, the court has to dispose of the same before proceeding with the trial.”