Framing of Issues and Trial Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The court may impose costs as a precondition for allowing further prosecution.

Section 35B of the Code of Civil Procedure, on costs for causing delay, lets the court order a party who fails to take a step on the date fixed, or obtains an adjournment for it, to pay costs to the other party. Payment of those costs on the next date is a condition precedent to the further prosecution of the suit by the plaintiff, or of the defence by the defendant, if the defaulting party is the defendant.

An adjournment is never a matter of right. Dismissal is not the remedy the section provides, and proceeding without any condition would defeat its purpose of compensating for delay.

Answer: B

The power vests by virtue of Order XIV Rule 5.

Order XIV Rule 5(1) of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 provides that the Court may at any time before passing a decree amend the issues or frame additional issues on such terms as it thinks fit, and shall make all such amendments or additional issues as are necessary for determining the matters in controversy.

Order XIV Rule 1 deals with framing issues in the first place, Rule 6 with issues framed on agreement of the parties, and Section 151 preserves the court's inherent powers, which are not needed where an express provision exists.

Answer: C

A civil court cannot issue a commission for executing a decree.

Section 75 of the Code of Civil Procedure, read with Order 26, lets the court issue a commission to examine any person, to make a local investigation, to examine or adjust accounts, to make a partition, to hold a scientific, technical or expert investigation, to conduct the sale of perishable property, and to perform any ministerial act.

Examining a witness, local investigation and partition are all on that list. Executing a decree is not; execution is carried out by the court itself under Order 21.

Answer: A

An ex-parte decree can be set aside on the ground that summons were not duly served.

Order 9 Rule 13 of the Code of Civil Procedure allows a defendant to have an ex parte decree set aside if he shows that the summons was not duly served, or that he was prevented by sufficient cause from appearing when the suit was called on for hearing.

Refusing to accept summons counts as service, so a defendant who refused cannot rely on it. Non-supply of copies of documents is not by itself a ground under the rule. Option D is plainly wrong, since Order 9 Rule 13 exists to set such decrees aside.