argument beyond pleadings

The Courts should ordinarily insist on the parties being confined to their specific written pleadings and should not be permitted to deviate from them by way of modification or supplementation except through the well-known process of formally applying for amendment. It is not that justice should be available to only those who approach the Court confined in a strait-jacket. But there is a procedure known to the law, and long established by codified practice and good reason, for seeking amendment of the pleadings. Besides this, oral submissions raising new points for the first time tend to do grave injury to a contesting party by depriving it of the opportunity, to which the principles of natural justice hold it entitled, of adequately preparing its response.