Pleadings, plaint and written statement (Order VI- Order VIII)

Before a cricket match begins, both captains hand in their team sheets. No one can add a player halfway through without the umpire’s nod. A civil case works in a similar way. Each side has to say, on paper and in advance, what it claims and what it denies, and the trial is then fought only on those points. Those papers are called pleadings. The plaint is the plaintiff’s team sheet and the written statement is the defendant’s. Orders VI to VIII tell you how to write them, and what goes wrong if you write them badly.

In two minutes

Pleadings are the plaint and the written statement (O.VI r.1); each must state material facts and not evidence, be signed and verified, and the defendant must answer specifically, because what is not denied is taken as admitted (O.VIII r.5).

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Civil Procedure Code 1908 and Limitation Act 1963 on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.