IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA C.R. No.1103 of 2006 KHURSHID ANWAR @ MD.WASIM Versus MD.ALEEMUDDIN & ORS ----------- 3 27/11/2008 Heard counsel for the petitioner and counsel for the opposite parties. It is a well settled in law that the plaintiff has to prove his case by leading his own evidence and cannot seek support for this purpose on the defendants. The case in hand is one in which there is a prayer for declaration of title and confirmation of possession, alternatively for recovery of possession. Three sets of defendants have filed their separate written statement and none of them even remotely admitted the case of the plaintiff. While defendant nos. 2, 3 and 4 have categorically denied such claim of the plaintiff, defendant nos. 1 and 5 in their separate written statement have not only set out their own case but have also made denial to the statements made in the plaint. The impression being created by counsel for the plaintiff-petitioner 2 before the court below and sought to be reasserted also before this Court that it was an appropriate case where the defendants in view of special facts mentioned in their written statement were required to lead evidence, to say the least, is wholly misconceived. The written statement of the defendant nos. 1 and 5 would go to show that in paragraph 11 where special facts have been mentioned, they are only by way of additional facts for controverting the allegations made in the plaint. That will not make the written statement, one admitting claim of the plaintiff-petitioner or shifting the onus on the defendants to lead their evidence. The scope of order 18 Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure is quite simple and specific that normally and ordinarily it is the plaintiff who has to lead evidence in course of hearing of the suit. This Court would from the facts, as noted above, find that there was no such exceptional circumstances which could have required the court below to have called upon the defendants to lead their evidence 3 before the plaintiff could have discharged their onus. That being so, the impugned order does not suffer from any jurisdictional error. Accordingly, this Civil Revision Application being wholly misconceived is hereby dismissed. (Mihir Kumar Jha, J.) Abhay Kumar