of claim, or include in his pleadings any allegation or fact inconsistent with his previous pleadings, has been considered elsewhere. In order to raise such a new ground of claim, or to include any such allegation, amendment of the original pleading is essential.” 17.1 In MSM Sharma versus Sri Krishna Sinha, AIR 1959 SC 395, their Lordships refused to consider a plea raised in rejoinder for the first time, observing: “The case of bias of the Chief Minister (respondent No.2) has not been made anywhere in the petition and we do not think it would be right to permit the petitioner to raise this question, for it depends on facts which were not mentioned in the petition but were put forward in a rejoinder to which the respondent had no opportunity to reply.” Finally, the Court summed up its conclusions as under: “24. To sum up: (1) ‘Replication’ and ‘rejoinder’ have well defined meanings. Replication is a pleading by plaintiff in answer to defendant’s plea. ‘Rejoinder’ is a second pleading