Blue Pencil doctrine

                   The Blue Pencil doctrine is a judicial standard for deciding whether to invalidate the whole contract or only the offending words. Under this standard, only the offending words are invalidated if it would be possible to delete them simply by running a blue pencil through them, as opposed to changing, adding, or re-arranging words. This doctrine holds that if courts can render an unreasonable restraint reasonable by scratching out the offensive portions of the covenant, they should do so and then enforce the remainder. Traditionally, the doctrine is applicable only if the covenant in question is applicable, so that the unreasonable portions may be separated.

In other words, it is a judicial standard for deciding whether to invalidate the whole contract or only to the extent of offending words. please see -

• Shin Satelite Public Co. Ltd v. Jain Studies Ltd. (2006) 2 SCC 628 / AIR 2006 SC 963

• Beed District Central Co.op Bank Ltd. v. State of Maharashtra (2006) 8 SCC 514 at 518

• Texco Marketing (P) Ltd. v. TATA AIG Insurance Co. Ltd. (2023) 1 SCC 428

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