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2017 (9) TMI 1977 - CALCUTTA HIGH COURTRevocation of leave under Clause 12 of the Letters Patent - dismissal of suit on the ground that the plaint does not disclose any cause of action against the defendant No. 1 - non-existent pre-incorporation agreement - HELD THAT:- For rejection of plaint under Order 7 Rule 11 only contents of the plaint have to be seen and read as a whole and nothing else. As long as the plaint discloses cause of action, mere fact that plaintiff may not succeed in suit cannot be ground for rejection of plaint - A plaint cannot be defeated due to lack of proof at this stage since in deciding an application in the nature of demurrer, the Court is not supposed to assess as to whether the plaintiff would be ultimately able to prove its case. There is a distinction between lack of pleading and lack of proof. A plaint must fail if there is a lack of pleading leading to non-disclosure of a cause of action. The indeterminate ambit of "unlawful means" thus remains one of the principal causes of uncertainty as to the potential scope of liability under this tort. The issue has been the subject of some judicial deliberation in other common law jurisdictions - A party must be shown to have known that they were inducing a breach of contract. It is not enough that a defendant knows that he is procuring an act which, as a matter of law or construction of the contract, is a breach, nor that he ought reasonably to have known that it is a breach. It was only on 4th August, 2005 that the present suits came to be filed by the appellants in which a prayer for injunction was made with a view to enforce the terms of clauses 15 and 20 of the agreement which incorporated negative covenants prohibiting mining operation by anyone else except the appellants, or without their permission. The use of the words "during the subsistence of this agreement" in clause 15, and "during the pendency of this indenture" in clause 20 of the agreement is significant. In the absence of a document renewing the original agreement for a further period of 5 years and in the absence of any declaration from a court of law that the original agreement stood renewed automatically upon the appellants exercising their option for grant of renewal, it was held that the appellants cannot be granted relief of injunction, for the simple reason that there is no subsisting agreement evidenced by a written document or declared by a court - the suit was held to be barred by limitation and, accordingly, dismissed under Order 7 Rule 11(d) of the Code of Civil Procedure. Application dismissed.
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