Of all the particulars a plaint must carry, none does more quiet work than the averment of where and when the cause of action arose. The place fixes the court that may hear the suit; the date fixes whether the suit is in time. Order VII Rule 1(e) of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 commands the plaintiff to state “the facts constituting the cause of action and when it arose,” and Rule 1(f) requires “the facts showing that the Court has jurisdiction.” A draftsman who treats these as boilerplate invites a return of the plaint under Section 21 read with Order VII Rule 10, or outright rejection under Order VII Rule 11. This chapter shows how to plead the place and date with the precision the Code demands.
Why Place and Date Are Load-Bearing Pleadings
The plaint is not a narrative for its own sake; every averment must earn its place by carrying a legal consequence. The averment of the place of the cause of action carries the question of territorial jurisdiction—which court, sitting in which town, may lawfully entertain the suit. The averment of the date carries the question of limitation—whether the suit was instituted within the period the Limitation Act, 1963 allows. Both flow from a single concept, the cause of action, and both are commanded by the opening rule of the plaint chapter.
Order VII Rule 1 lists the particulars a plaint must contain. Clause (e) requires “the facts constituting the cause of action and when it arose,” and clause (f) requires “the facts showing that the Court has jurisdiction.” These are companion requirements: the facts that constitute the cause of action are also, very often, the facts that confer or deny jurisdiction. A plaint that pleads the cause of action fully but omits where its constituent facts arose leaves clause (f) unsatisfied and exposes the suit to challenge. This chapter builds on the statement of facts constituting the cause of action and on the statutory basis of the plaint, and assumes familiarity with the broader plaint and written statement drafting guide.
What “Cause of Action” Means
Before a draftsman can plead where and when a cause of action arose, the concept itself must be pinned down. The Code does not define “cause of action,” so courts have borrowed the classic English formulation. In Read v. Brown (1888) 22 QBD 128, the Court of Appeal described a cause of action as “every fact which it would be necessary for the plaintiff to prove, if traversed, in order to support his right to the judgment of the court.” That formulation has been adopted again and again by the Supreme Court of India.
In A.B.C. Laminart (P) Ltd. v. A.P. Agencies, Salem, (1989) 2 SCC 163, the Supreme Court held that a cause of action “means every fact which, if traversed, it would be necessary for the plaintiff to prove in order to support his right to a judgment of the court. In other words, it is a bundle of facts which taken with the law applicable to them gives the plaintiff a right to relief against the defendant.” The same “bundle of facts” test recurs in Swamy Atmananda v. Sri Ramakrishna Tapovanam, (2005) 10 SCC 51, where the Court called the cause of action “the fact or combination of facts which gives rise to a right or action.” Crucially, the bundle does not include facts the defendant might plead in defence, nor evidence; it includes only the material facts the plaintiff must prove. This is the same idea explored in the chapter on the statement of facts constituting the cause of action.
Once the bundle is identified, the draftsman can ask of each fact two further questions: where did this fact occur, and when? The answers populate the jurisdiction and limitation pleadings.
Place: How the Cause of Action Fixes the Court
The place where the cause of action arises is one of the principal connecting factors for territorial jurisdiction. Section 20 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides that, subject to the earlier limitations, every suit shall be instituted in a court within the local limits of whose jurisdiction (a) the defendant actually and voluntarily resides or carries on business or personally works for gain; or (b) where there are several defendants, any of them so resides or works, subject to leave of court or acquiescence; or, by clause (c), “the cause of action, wholly or in part, arises.”
Clause (c) is the engine of place-based jurisdiction. It means a plaintiff may sue in any court within whose local limits the whole, or even a part, of the cause of action arose. Where a contract is made in one town, performed in another, and breached in a third, more than one court may have jurisdiction, and the plaintiff may choose among them. The draftsman must therefore plead the specific facts—where the offer was accepted, where payment was due, where delivery failed—that anchor the chosen forum. A bare assertion that “the cause of action arose within the jurisdiction of this Hon’ble Court” is a conclusion, not a fact, and will not survive a careful reading. For the related drafting of the court’s name and the suit’s framing, see cause title, court, suit number and parties.
“Wholly or in Part”: The Reach of Section 20(c)
The phrase “wholly or in part” in Section 20(c) is deliberately generous to the plaintiff, but it has limits. A fact relied on must be an integral part of the cause of action, not a fact incidental or merely facilitative. The leading illustration is M/s South East Asia Shipping Co. Ltd. v. M/s Nav Bharat Enterprises Pvt. Ltd., (1996) 3 SCC 443. There a bank guarantee had been executed at Delhi but was transmitted to Bombay, where the underlying contract was made and was to be performed. The Supreme Court held that no part of the cause of action arose within the jurisdiction of the Delhi High Court: the mere execution of the guarantee at Delhi, divorced from the place of the contract and its performance, did not amount to even a part of the cause of action. The plaint was directed to be returned for presentation to the proper court.
The same discipline appears in the writ context. In Kusum Ingots & Alloys Ltd. v. Union of India, (2004) 6 SCC 254, the Supreme Court read the corresponding language in Article 226(2) of the Constitution and held that “some part of the cause of action” must arise within a High Court’s territory before it can entertain a writ, and that the part relied on must be integral. Because both the loan transaction and the impugned recovery notice originated at Bhopal, the Delhi High Court was right to decline jurisdiction merely because the impugned legislation had been enacted at Delhi. The Court also coined the “doctrine of forum conveniens,” noting that even where a small part of the cause of action arises within its territory, a High Court may decline to exercise jurisdiction if the forum is not convenient. The lesson for the civil draftsman is the same: plead facts that are genuinely constitutive of the right, not facts that merely touch the dispute.
Place in Suits for Immovable Property and Special Categories
Section 20 is residual; it applies only to suits not otherwise provided for. For suits relating to immovable property, Sections 16 to 18 govern. Section 16 requires that suits for the recovery of immovable property, for partition, for foreclosure, sale or redemption of a mortgage, for determination of any right to or interest in immovable property, and for compensation for wrong to immovable property, be instituted in the court within whose local limits the property is situate. The proviso to Section 16 permits a suit for relief respecting, or compensation for wrong to, immovable property held by the defendant to be brought where the defendant resides or carries on business, if the relief sought can be entirely obtained through his personal obedience.
Section 17 deals with property situate within the jurisdiction of different courts, allowing the suit in any court within whose limits any portion of the property lies, provided the entire claim is cognisable by that court. Section 18 supplies a mechanism where it is uncertain within which of two or more jurisdictions the property is situate. For a draftsman, the practical consequence is that in a property suit the “place” averment must locate the property, not merely recite that the cause of action arose locally. The connection between these particulars and the broader anatomy of the plaint is taken up in drafting of plaint components.
Ouster Clauses: When Parties Choose the Place
Commercial contracts frequently contain a clause naming a particular court. Such a clause cannot confer jurisdiction on a court that the Code does not otherwise reach—parties cannot by agreement vest jurisdiction where none exists—but where two or more courts have jurisdiction under the Code, the parties may by agreement confine future disputes to one of them. This was settled in A.B.C. Laminart (P) Ltd. v. A.P. Agencies, Salem, (1989) 2 SCC 163, where the Court held that a clause stating that “any dispute arising out of this sale shall be subject to Kaira jurisdiction” would oust the other competent court only if its language, read with the words “alone,” “only,” “exclusive” or the like, or by clear intendment, excluded it. Because the clause there did not use exclusionary words and the cause of action partly arose at Salem, the Salem court retained jurisdiction.
For the draftsman acting for a plaintiff, an exclusive-jurisdiction clause must be confronted in the plaint itself: either plead facts showing the chosen court is the contractually agreed and competent forum, or, if suing elsewhere, anticipate the clause and plead why it does not bind. A plaint that ignores a known ouster clause is vulnerable to a jurisdictional objection in the written statement.
Date: How the Cause of Action Fixes Limitation
The second half of Order VII Rule 1(e)—“when it arose”—ties the plaint to the Limitation Act, 1963. The date on which the cause of action arises is, in most articles of the Schedule to the Limitation Act, the date from which time begins to run. If the plaint does not disclose when the cause of action arose, the court cannot test the suit against the applicable article, and the defendant cannot raise the bar of limitation with precision.
The point at which a cause of action accrues is the point at which the right to sue first arises. In Bloom Dekor Ltd. v. Subhash Himatlal Desai, (1994) 6 SCC 322, the Supreme Court reiterated that the cause of action is the bundle of facts the plaintiff must prove, and that it arises when those facts are complete—when the right to relief is mature. For a contract, that is usually the date of breach; for a tort actionable per se, the date of the wrongful act; for money lent, the date the loan became repayable. The draftsman should state the operative date or dates expressly, because vagueness here is fatal in two directions: it weakens the plaintiff’s own showing of timeliness and it hands the defendant a pleading point.
Recurring and Continuing Causes of Action
Not every cause of action arises on a single day. Section 22 of the Limitation Act, 1963 provides that in the case of a continuing breach of contract or a continuing tort, a fresh period of limitation begins to run at every moment of the time during which the breach or the wrong continues. A draftsman pleading a continuing wrong—such as an ongoing trespass, a continuing nuisance, or a recurring failure to pay an instalment—should plead the continuing character of the wrong expressly, so that the date averment is not read as confining the suit to a single, possibly time-barred, event.
The distinction matters because the defendant’s written statement will often seek to characterise a continuing wrong as a single completed wrong, fixing the date at the earliest moment and pleading limitation. The plaintiff’s safeguard is a date averment that, where the facts permit, asserts the continuing nature of the cause of action and identifies the most recent constituent fact within limitation.
Pleading Exemption from Limitation: Order VII Rule 6
Where, on the date averment, the suit appears to have been instituted after the prescribed period, the draftsman cannot leave the limitation question to argument. Order VII Rule 6 provides that “where the suit is instituted after the expiration of the period prescribed by the law of limitation, the plaint shall show the ground upon which exemption from such law is claimed.” The proviso, inserted by the 1976 amendment, allows the court to permit reliance on a ground of exemption not set out in the plaint, provided it is not inconsistent with the grounds pleaded.
The grounds typically pleaded are those the Limitation Act itself recognises—acknowledgment of liability under Section 18, part-payment under Section 19, legal disability under Section 6, or postponement of the running of time on the ground of fraud or mistake under Section 17. The pleading must be specific. A bald allegation of “fraud” or a vague claim of continuing cause will not discharge the burden; the plaintiff must set out the facts that bring the case within the exemption. Because the date averment in Order VII Rule 1(e) and the exemption averment in Rule 6 are read together, a draftsman who pleads the date frankly must, in the same breath, plead the route around the bar.
Consequences of Defective Place or Date Pleading
A defect in the place averment and a defect in the date averment trigger different machinery. If the plaint shows that the court lacks territorial jurisdiction—that no part of the cause of action arose within its limits and the defendant does not reside there—the proper course is the return of the plaint under Order VII Rule 10 for presentation to the court in which it should have been instituted, as the Supreme Court directed in South East Asia Shipping Co. v. Nav Bharat Enterprises, (1996) 3 SCC 443. Section 21 of the Code limits objections to the place of suing taken for the first time in appeal, so a defendant who wishes to press the point must do so at the earliest opportunity in the trial court.
If the plaint, read as a whole, discloses no cause of action, or shows on its face that the suit is barred by limitation, the plaint is liable to be rejected under Order VII Rule 11(a) and (d). The test is settled by Sopan Sukhdeo Sable v. Assistant Charity Commissioner, (2004) 3 SCC 137: the court looks only at the averments in the plaint, read meaningfully and not formally, to ask whether a real cause of action is disclosed or whether the suit is on the face of it barred. The defendant’s written statement is not considered at this stage. A draftsman who has pleaded place and date with care leaves no opening for either return or rejection.
Disclosing—Not Merely Asserting—the Cause of Action
Rejection under Order VII Rule 11(a) turns on whether the plaint “does not disclose a cause of action,” and the courts have been firm that disclosure means averment of the constitutive facts, not a recital of conclusions. In Liverpool & London S.P. & I Association Ltd. v. M.V. Sea Success I, (2004) 9 SCC 512, the Supreme Court explained that for the purpose of Rule 11(a) the averments in the plaint are taken to be correct, and the question is whether, on those averments taken at their highest, a cause of action is made out. A clever defendant cannot manufacture rejection by reading words into the plaint; equally, a careless plaintiff cannot survive by reading words out of it.
The practical implication for the place and date averments is that they must be factual and complete. Pleading “the cause of action arose on various dates within jurisdiction” discloses nothing; pleading “the defendant accepted the plaintiff’s offer at Chennai on 3 March 2023, failed to deliver the goods at Chennai on the agreed date of 1 June 2023, and refused payment on 15 June 2023, all within the local limits of this Hon’ble Court” discloses both the bundle of facts and their situs and timing. Compare the treatment of identifying particulars in particulars: names, descriptions and addresses.
Drafting the Jurisdiction and Limitation Paragraphs
By convention the plaint carries, near its close, a dedicated paragraph headed “Jurisdiction” and, where relevant, a paragraph on limitation. The jurisdiction paragraph should not introduce new facts but should gather the place-related facts already pleaded in the body and connect them to the statutory basis. A sound formulation reads: “The cause of action arose, wholly or in part, within the local limits of the jurisdiction of this Hon’ble Court, in that the contract was concluded at [place] on [date], the goods were to be delivered at [place], and the breach occurred at [place]; this Hon’ble Court therefore has jurisdiction to entertain and try this suit under Section 20(c) of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.”
The limitation paragraph should state the date on which the cause of action arose and assert that the suit is within time under the applicable article, or, where it is not, plead the ground of exemption under Order VII Rule 6. The draftsman should also satisfy Order VII Rule 1(i) by stating the value of the subject matter for purposes of jurisdiction and court fees, since pecuniary jurisdiction works alongside territorial jurisdiction. Treating these closing paragraphs as a true synthesis of the body—rather than as detachable formulae—is what separates a plaint that withstands a Rule 11 application from one that does not.
A Draftsman’s Checklist for Place and Date
Before settling the plaint, the draftsman should run through a short discipline. First, identify the bundle of facts that constitutes the cause of action, applying the A.B.C. Laminart and Bloom Dekor test, and exclude defensive facts and evidence. Second, for each constitutive fact, state where it occurred, and confirm that at least one integral fact arose within the chosen court’s limits, mindful of the integral-part limitation in South East Asia Shipping and Kusum Ingots. Third, for each constitutive fact, state when it occurred, and identify the operative date from which limitation runs.
Fourth, check the applicable article of the Limitation Act, 1963 and, if the suit is beyond time, plead the exemption under Order VII Rule 6 with specific facts. Fifth, confront any exclusive-jurisdiction clause and plead around it or in reliance on it. Sixth, ensure the jurisdiction and limitation paragraphs synthesise, and do not contradict, the facts in the body. A plaint built to this checklist gives the court everything Order VII Rule 1(e) and (f) demand and gives the defendant nothing to seize upon under Order VII Rules 10 and 11. For the foundational orientation to these requirements, revisit the introduction to plaint drafting.
Frequently asked questions
What does Order VII Rule 1(e) CPC require about place and date?
Order VII Rule 1(e) requires the plaint to state “the facts constituting the cause of action and when it arose.” Read with Rule 1(f), which requires the facts showing the court has jurisdiction, it obliges the plaintiff to plead both where and when the constituent facts of the cause of action occurred, so the court can test territorial jurisdiction and limitation.
Can a suit be filed wherever part of the cause of action arises?
Yes, under Section 20(c) CPC a suit may be filed where the cause of action arises “wholly or in part.” But the part relied on must be an integral part of the cause of action. In South East Asia Shipping Co. v. Nav Bharat Enterprises (1996) 3 SCC 443 the Supreme Court held that merely executing a bank guarantee at Delhi did not amount to part of the cause of action where the contract was made and performed at Bombay.
How does the date of the cause of action affect limitation?
The date the cause of action arises is normally the date from which limitation begins to run under the Limitation Act, 1963. The cause of action accrues when the right to sue first arises, as explained in Bloom Dekor Ltd. v. Subhash Himatlal Desai (1994) 6 SCC 322. A plaint that omits the date prevents the court from testing the suit against the applicable article.
What must a plaint say if the suit is filed after the limitation period?
Order VII Rule 6 CPC requires the plaint to “show the ground upon which exemption from such law is claimed.” The ground—such as acknowledgment under Section 18, part-payment under Section 19, disability under Section 6, or fraud or mistake under Section 17 of the Limitation Act—must be pleaded with specific facts; a vague allegation will not discharge the burden.
Does an exclusive-jurisdiction clause in a contract decide the place of suing?
It can, but only between courts that already have jurisdiction under the Code. In A.B.C. Laminart (P) Ltd. v. A.P. Agencies (1989) 2 SCC 163 the Supreme Court held that such a clause ousts another competent court only where words like “alone,” “only” or “exclusive,” or clear intendment, show that intent. Parties cannot by agreement confer jurisdiction on a court the Code does not reach.
What happens if the place or date is pleaded defectively?
If the court lacks territorial jurisdiction, the plaint is returned under Order VII Rule 10 for presentation to the proper court. If the plaint discloses no cause of action or is barred by limitation on its face, it is liable to rejection under Order VII Rule 11(a) and (d). Under Sopan Sukhdeo Sable v. Assistant Charity Commissioner (2004) 3 SCC 137 the court reads only the plaint averments, meaningfully and not formally.