Question

In accordance with the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, where a court, while examining pleadings, finds certain averments to be unnecessary and capable of prejudicing or delaying the fair trial, the court, in such a case, may:

• A. Strike out such pleadings at any stage of proceedings.
• B. Direct amendment only after trial begins.
• C. Ignore such pleadings without passing any order.
• D. Reject the plaint in entirety.

Hint:

Remember the keywords of Order VI Rule 16: Scandalous, Frivolous, Vexatious, Prejudicial, Embarrassing, Delaying. Whenever these words appear in a question, think of the court's power to strike out pleadings.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is A

A good way to avoid confusion here is to separate Order VI Rule 16 from two other CPC powers it is often mixed up with in exam questions, namely rejection of a plaint and amendment of pleadings on a party's own application.

1. Rejection of plaint (a different power entirely): The Code allows a plaint to be rejected in its entirety only in specific circumstances, such as when it discloses no cause of action, not merely because it contains some unnecessary or prejudicial statements. Since our situation involves only certain averments being objectionable, reaching for total rejection of the plaint would be using the wrong tool.
2. Amendment on a party's own application (also a different mechanism): A party can separately apply to amend its own pleading, and that process has its own timing considerations, but that is not the power being described here, where the court itself, on examining the pleadings, identifies unnecessary and prejudicial matter.
3. Order VI Rule 16, the power actually in play: This is the provision that specifically lets the court strike out or amend matter in any pleading that is unnecessary or likely to prejudice, embarrass, or delay a fair trial. Because this power exists precisely to let the court clean up pleadings on its own initiative, it can be exercised at any stage of the proceedings, not tied to whether trial has begun.
4. Why "ignore without an order" and "reject the plaint" both fail: Ignoring the matter would leave the record uncorrected despite the court having identified a problem, while rejecting the plaint would be a disproportionate response to a defect that concerns only part of the pleading.

Once Order VI Rule 16 is correctly separated from plaint-rejection and party-initiated amendment, its own scope confirms that the court may strike out the unnecessary and prejudicial pleadings at any stage of the proceedings.

Answer 2

Thinking about this from a case-management perspective, namely why a court would even want this power, also points to the same answer.

1. Why courts need this power early and often: Pleadings that are cluttered with unnecessary, scandalous, or prejudicial material make it harder for the parties and the court to identify the real issues in dispute. A court benefits from being able to clear away such material as soon as it is noticed, rather than waiting for a fixed procedural moment, which supports reading the power as exercisable at any stage.
2. Why waiting until trial begins would be inefficient: If the power to strike out prejudicial matter could only be used after trial had already started, the very risk the rule is meant to prevent, namely the trial being complicated or delayed by objectionable pleadings, would already have partly materialised by the time the court could act.
3. Why silently ignoring the matter is not case management at all: Leaving objectionable pleadings on the record without any formal order does nothing to streamline the case; the court's intervention needs to be recorded so that the parties know which averments no longer stand.
4. Why rejecting the whole plaint is disproportionate case management: Discarding an entire plaint over a portion of unnecessary or prejudicial content would eliminate a case that may otherwise have a perfectly valid cause of action, which is a far more drastic step than the targeted defect calls for.

Efficient case management therefore calls for a targeted, promptly available power, and that is exactly what Order VI Rule 16 provides: the court may strike out such pleadings at any stage of the proceedings, which is the correct answer.