Demurrer - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition demurrer

Definition :

Demurrer [fr. demoror, Lat.; or demorrer, Fr., to wait or stay], a pleading which admits the facts as stated in the pleading of the opponent, and referring the law arising thereon to the judgment of the Court, waits until by such judgment the Court decides whether he is bound to answer. 'The office of a demurrer is simply to state that the plaintiff has not made a sufficient case to entitle him to relief in equity', Wood v. Midgley, (1854) 5 De GM&G 44, per Turner, L.J.

In civil matters this mode of pleading is abolished by R.S. C. 1883, Ord. XXV., r. 1, but subsequent rules of the same Order allow points of law raised on the pleading of any party to be disposed of before trial by order of the Court or a judge, and pleadings to be struck out if they disclose no reasonable cause of action.

In criminal prosecutions a demurrer may be resorted to, when the fact as alleged is allowed to be true, but the defendant takes exception in point of law to the sufficient of the indictment or information on the face of it, as if he insist that the fact as stated is no felony, treason, or whatever the crime is alleged to be. It is seldom resorted to.

Demurrer, is an act of objecting or taking exception or a protest. It is a pleading by a party to a legal action that assumes the truth of the matter alleged by the opposite party and set up that it is insufficient in law to sustain his claim or that there is some other defect on the face of the pleadings constituting a legal reason why the opposite party should not be allowed to proceed further, Ramesh B. Desai v. Bipin Vadilal Mehta, 2006 (5) SCC 638.

Is an act of objecting or taking exception or a protest, Ramesh B. Desai v. Bipin Vadilal Mehta, (2006) 5 SCC 638.