Doctrine Of Blue Pencil

INTRODUCTION

According to Oxford Dictionary of English, Blue Pencil means to censor or to make cuts in a manuscript, film or other work. Blue Pencil was earlier used by the editors to make corrections in the copy. According to Black's Law Dictionary the Doctrine of Blue Pencil 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 rearranging words. The Blue Pencil rule allows the courts only to strike down the offending provisions and enforce the rest of the agreement.