Stages of Civil Litigation

Presented by
Md. Ahsan Kabir
Assistant Professor
Department of Law and Justice
Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University
 Contents:
1. Institution of suit/ Issue of Plaint:
2. Issue of Process/Summons
3. Return of Summons
4. Filling Written Statement
5. First Hearing and the Examination of
Parties by the Court
6. Framing of Issues
7. Settling of Date for Hearing (SD)
8. Opening the case
9. Examination in Chief
10. Cross-Examination and Re-examination
11. Summing Up/Closing Speech/Argument
12. Pronouncement of Judgement
13. Decree and Order
14. Application for Execution of a Decree
15. Mode of Execution
 Institution of suit/ Issue of Plaint:
✓ Sec-26 of CPC- Every suit shall be instituted by the presentation of a
plaint or in such other manner as may be prescribed.
✓ It is to be filed in the court which has both territorial & pecuniary
jurisdiction.
✓ Sec-15- Every suit shall be instituted in the Court of the lowest grade
competent to try it.
✓ Once a plaint is taken to the court, the court officer, i.e. The Sheristadar
shall examine, if the relief claimed has been properly valued and the
court fees paid.
✓ After such examination he puts a serial (consecutive) number of the suit
and will enter the suit into a Register called the Register of Suits.
✓ Once this is done a civil suit is said to have been started.
 Issue of Process:
✓ Once the suit is filed and registered, the next step is to issue a
process, i.e, issue of summons by the court to the defendent to
appear and answer the claim.
✓ Sec-27 of CPC- Where a suit has been duly instituted, a
summons may be issued to the defendant to appear and answer
the claim and may be served in manner prescribed.
✓ 1st Schedule, Appendix-B(Form-1,2..)
✓ Summon- A summon is a document issued from the office of a
court of justice, calling upon the person to whom it is directed
to attend before a judge or officer of the court for a certain
purposes.
 Service of Summons:
✓ Summons with a copy of the plaint which is served
on the defendant states the nature of the plaintiff’s
claim against the defendant and the remedy he seeks
to obtain, which may be damages or the recovery of
debt, or recovery of possession of property, or an
injunction etc.
✓ Normally service of summons is done by the court
officer and the normal method is by registered post
(Order-V, R-1)
 Return of Summons:
✓ On the summons a date is put by the court
for the appearance of the defendant.
✓ Once the defendant receives the summons
and he intends to contest the claim, he has
to appear in the court on the day fixed in
the summons to appear.
 Filling Written Statement:
✓Later on, the defendant has to file his written
statement either on or before the date of first
hearing (O-8/R-1).
✓Again, on this date if the court finds that the
plaintiff has failed to pay the required court fee
or postal charges for service of summons, the
court may dismiss the suit on that day. (O-9/R-
2)
 First Hearing and the Examination of
Parties by the Court:
✓ The court will fix the date for first hearing.
✓ The first hearing of a suit means the day on which the court
goes into pleadings of the parties in order to understand
their contentions.
✓ At the first hearing of the suit the court shall ascertain from
each party or his pleader whether he admits or denies such
allegations of fact are made in the plaint or written
statement.
✓ The court will record such admission or denials (R-1/O-10)
✓ Issues are normally framed at this first hearing.
 Framing of Issues:
✓Issues are of two kinds- issues of fact and
issue of law.
✓Issues arise when a material proposition
of fact or law is affirmed by one party
and denied by the other.
✓Each material proposition affirmed by
one party and denied by the other shall
form the subject of a distinct issue.
✓ At the first hearing of the suit the court shall, after reading the
plaint and the written statements and after examination of the
parties, if required, ascertain upon what material propositions of
fact or law the parties are at variance, and shall thereupon
proceed to frame and record the issues on which the right
decision of the case appears to depend.
✓ The duty to frame issues primarily rests with the court.
✓ However, the advocates appearing for both the parties also should
assist the court in framing issues.
✓ Issues must be confined to the material questions of law or fact
and not on subordinate facts or evidence by which the material
questions fact or law are proved or disproved.
 Settling of Date for Hearing (SD):
✓ Once the issues are framed, the court will fix a date for
settling the date of final or peremptory hearing, i.e, the trail.
✓ On the settling date (SD) the court insists on the parties for
filing their lists of witnesses and applying for any
commission that may be required for examination of
witnesses.
✓ On the SD the presiding judge should fix the date of
peremptory or final hearing.
✓ After a peremptory hearing date has been fixed, no further
adjournment is normally granted except for the most urgent
and special reasons.
 Opening the case:
✓ The plaintiff will have the right to start his opening speech first but
occasionally it might be the right of the defence to start the trial with
a speech.
✓ It really depends upon who bears the burden of proof on the matters
in issue in the trail (O-18/R-1).
In the opening speech the opening advocate will state the following
things:
✓ State the nature of the case, claim for damages, etc
✓ State the issues in the case, the areas of dispute between the parties.
✓ Summaries the fact in issue or the theory of the case, the facts which
have been established or will be established during the trail.
✓ State briefly the evidence of the witnesses, how the issues in the
case will be proved.
 Examination in Chief:
✓ As soon as the case is opened by the plaintiff, he
will call the witnesses on the plaintiff’s side one
after another and will examine them in line with the
plaintiff’s case.
✓ If there is any documentary evidence to produce,
this is the stage to present the same to the court.
✓ The evidential rule of burden of proof requires that
the plaintiff has to discharge his burden by raising a
prima facie case in relation to the relevant issue.
 Cross-Examination and Re-
examination:
✓After a party examines his witnesses in chief,
his opponent has the right to cross-examine him.
✓The cross-examination usually follows
immediately upon the examination-in-chief.
✓After cross-examination is complete, a party
calling a witness may recall him to re-examine.
✓The purpose of re-examination is to clarify,
explain or develop matters arising out of cross-
examination so as to limit, where possible, any
damage to the case.
 Summing Up/Closing
Speech/Argument:
✓ As soon as evidence is closed, i.e., after hearing of both the evidences
for the plaintiff and the defendant, the pleaders will be called upon to
argue their cases.
✓ The party beginning will have his argument at the end (O-18/R-2).
✓ Thus usually the defendant’s counsel goes first with his closing speech.
In a closing speech of a civil trail the counsel will normally substantiate
the following points:
✓ Reinforcing the client’s story into a coherent whole in so far as the
evidence has backed it up. This is to persuade the judge of the merits of
the case (but definitely not misleading the court).
✓ An argument on law and legal principles if any on the point, e.g,
referring to case laws.
 Pronouncement of Judgement:
✓ After hearing the case the court shall pronounce in open court
either at once or on future date.
✓ The judgement is to be dated and signed at the time when it
pronounced.
✓ Within the 7 days of the argument the court will pronounce the
judgement in open court.
Judgment includes the following matters:
a) A concise statement of the case
b) The points of determination
c) The decision thereon
d) The reasons of such decision
 Decree and Order:
✓The adjudication of a court of law
may be of two types:
i. Orders
ii. Decrees
✓ These two has been defined in
section 2 of CPC.
Application for Execution of a Decree:
✓ Execution is the enforcement of a decree by the judicial
process which enables the decree-holder to realise the fruits of
the decree passed by the compenent court in his favour.
✓ All proceedings in execution commence with the filing of an
application for execution.
✓ Such application should be made to the court which passed the
decree or where the decree has been transferred to another
court, to that court.
✓ Once an application for execution of decree is received by the
court, it will examine whether the application complies with
the requirements of Rules 11 to 14 of Order 21 of CPC.
 Mode of Execution:
✓By delivery of any property specified in
the decree or by attachment and sale or
by sale without attachment, or by arrest
and detention in civil prison of the
judgement debtor or by appointing a
receiver, or by affecting a partition, or in
such other manner as the nature of the
relief may require.
THANK YOU