C.R. No.7388 of 2010 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT FOR THE STATES OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH C.R. No.7388 of 2010 Date of Decision.15.12.2010 Pyare Lal son of Banwari son of Abhar r/o village Chichrana Tehsil Israna Distt. Panipat ......Petitioner Versus Meher Singh and others ......Respondents Present: Mr. Sandeep Chhabra, Advocate for the petitioner. CORAM:HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ? Yes 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not ? Yes 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? Yes -.- K. KANNAN J.(ORAL) 1. The revision is filed against the order dated 13.10.2010 passed in a pending suit declining permission to give evidence with reference to certain documents, which had already been filed in Court and marked but which had not been exhibited to be read in evidence. The documents, which were sought to be filed were certain pleadings filed in Civil Suit No.312 of 1989, Civil Suit No.135 of 1989 and Civil Suit No.178 of 1989. 2. The trial Court, while dismissing the petition, has observed that the suit had been filed by the petitioner for declaration claiming himself to be the owner under a document of purchase dated 29.11.1988 and for a further declaration that a judgment and decree obtained in Civil Suit No.615 of 1987 was illegal and null and void. The trial Court also noted that the plaintiff had already tendered the C.R. No.7388 of 2010 -2- said evidence in his rebuttal evidence and though they had been marked on 15.09.2009, the same could not be exhibited in evidence since the evidence of both the parties have been closed and it had not been explained in the case as to how the additional evidence sought to be produced was material evidence to the present case. I would have felt inclined to serve notice to the respondent if there was anything substantial to be considered but it has become a recurrent practice to hold up trials for flimsy reasons and the purpose of even amending Section 115 of Civil Procedure Code has become counter- productive. The litigants have now learnt to approach the Court for intervention under Article 227 of the Constitution of India. If this case were to be considered as merely on the touchstone of the strict applicability of Article 227, I would have had no difficulty in simply rejecting the petition and confirming the order. However, I find that here the mistake was not merely of the party trying to put some documents in evidence of what had already been filed but there was also an error in approach by the Court itself in the manner of piloting its own proceedings. 4. First of all, it must be noticed that a certified copy of a plaint or written statement or a judgment filed in court are not confidential but to the extent to which certified copies could be obtained by parties to proceedings, as also by any third party, on giving reasons for seeking for copies, they are public documents. Section 74 defines “public documents” as follows: 74. Public documents.—The following documents are public documents— C.R. No.7388 of 2010 -3- (1) documents forming the acts or records of the acts- (i) of the sovereign authority, (ii) of official bodies and tribunals, and (iii) of public officers, legislative, judicial and executive, [of any part of India or of the Commonwealth], or of a foreign country; (2) public records kept [in any State] of private documents. A copy of plaint or written statement are private documents, but if they are filed in court and retained as permanent records by a public officer, they partake the character of “public documents”. If a person has a right to inspect such a public document, the right to obtain a certified copy is provided under section 76 of the Act. It provides as follows: "76. Certified copies of public documents.—Every public officer having the custody of a public document, which any person has a right to inspect, shall give that person on demand a copy of it on payment of the legal fees therefore, together with a certificate written at the foot of such copy that it is a true copy of such document or part thereof, as the case may be, and such certificate shall be dated and subscribed by such officer with his name and his official title, and shall be sealed, whenever such officer is authorized by law to make use of a seal; and such copies so certified shall be called certified copies. C.R. No.7388 of 2010 -4- Explanation.—Any officer who, by the ordinary course of official duty, is authorized to deliver such copies, shall be deemed to have the custody of such documents within the meaning of this section." 5. Unlike a document filed in a civil proceeding, the certified copy of which could be applied by a stranger only with the consent of person by whom it was produced, a copy of plaint or written statement could be obtained by even a stranger after the disposal of the case. The copy of the plaint and statement, which were exhibited in Court could, therefore, be relied on by a party as a public document and no further proof is necessary. The mode of obtaining certified copy of plaint, statement and judgment in judicial proceeding is contained in the High Court Rules contained in Vol IV Chapter 17, that reads as follows:- “3. Persons entitled to obtained copies:- A copy of a record shall be granted in the manner prescribed by these rules to any person, who under the law for the time being in force, or under these rules, is entitled to get it. In particular, copies may be granted as follows:- (1) Any party to a civil or criminal case is entitled at any stage of the suit or complaint to obtain copies of the record of the case including documents exhibited and finally accepted by the court as evidence. Explanation- (i) “Complaints” include challans (ii) A party to a suit or complaint who has been ordered to file a written statement is not entitled to a copy of the written statement of his opponent until he has first held his own. (2) A stranger to a civil or criminal case may, after decree or judgment, obtain copies of the plaint or complaint, written statement, affidavits and petitions filed in the case, as also of the evidence recorded by the court, and may, for sufficient reasons shown to the satisfaction of the Court, obtain copies of any document C.R. No.7388 of 2010 -5- before the final order is passed. He may also obtain copies of any judgment, decree or order, at any time after the same has been passed or made, but he shall not be granted copies of exhibits put in as evidence except with the consent of the person by whom they were produced or under the orders of the Court. (3) Official letters shall be treated as privileged documents and copies thereof shall not be ordinarily granted. Should it be necessary to grant a copy of a letter, or of an extract of a letter, received by a subordinate form a superior officer reference shall, in every case, be made to the superior officer for permission to grant copy thereof.” 6. Consequently, if a party obtains certified copy of plaint or written statement or judgment of a court, it shall be treated as a public document and no further proof is necessary for proof of the document. The court is bound to receive it as evidence at the instance of any party producing the same. The character of certified copies of plaint and statements as public documents have been dealt with in Ratanlal’s Law of Evidence Act, Twentieth Edition 2002 as follow. There seems to be different views from various High Courts and it paraphrases the varying views of Courts. “It has been held that the documents which consist of plaint, written statement affidavits and petitions filed in a Court cannot be said to form such acts or records of acts as are mentioned in the section, and so they are not public documents. (Maliprasad Vs. Brijkishore Singh 1942 Oudh 309, Manbodh V. Hirasai AIR 1926 Nag 339; Akshoy Kumar Vs. Sukumar AIR 1951 Cal 320; Dr. Kamal Krishnan Vs. Kailash Chand ILR (1997) 1 Delhi 97). However, the Madras High Court has held that plaints and written statements are public documents (Narasimha Rama Rao C.R. No.7388 of 2010 -6- V. Venkataramanayya 1940 Mad 168 (FB). It is submitted that this view is probable as it accords with the view expressed by TAYLOR 10th Ed, Section 1534, Page 1108 and of BEST 8th Ed., Section 218. If plaints and other documents filed by the parties in Courts are treated as public documents, a certified copy would be admissible which would avoid the necessity of producing the original thereby avoiding the inconvenience to courts and the risk is transmitting the records to other courts." 7. The extent of relevance of the document tendered is a different issue. If an objection as to admissibility is taken on the question of relevance, the court shall summarily deal with it in the light of the facts required to be established in the case. It need not be through an elaborate speaking order. However, if the matter requires a detailed consideration, even then the court need not hold up proceedings. It may receive the document subject to objection and deal with the issue of admissibility at the time of arguments and delivery of judgments. Dealing with the procedure to be adopted in criminal trials, which in my view will apply, a fortiorari, to civil proceedings also, the Supreme Court held Bipin Shantilal Panchal v. State of Gujarat,(2001) 3 SCC 1, at page 5 as follows: “13. It is an archaic practice that during the evidence- collecting stage, whenever any objection is raised regarding admissibility of any material in evidence the court does not proceed further without passing order on such objection. But the fallout of the above practice is this: Suppose the trial court, in a case, upholds a particular C.R. No.7388 of 2010 -7- objection and excludes the material from being admitted in evidence and then proceeds with the trial and disposes of the case finally. If the appellate or the revisional court, when the same question is recanvassed, could take a different view on the admissibility of that material in such cases the appellate court would be deprived of the benefit of that evidence, because that was not put on record by the trial court. In such a situation the higher court may have to send the case back to the trial court for recording that evidence and then to dispose of the case afresh. Why should the trial prolong like that unnecessarily on account of practices created by ourselves. Such practices, when realised through the course of long period to be hindrances which impede steady and swift progress of trial proceedings, must be recast or remoulded to give way for better substitutes which would help acceleration of trial proceedings. 14. When so recast, the practice which can be a better substitute is this: Whenever an objection is raised during evidence-taking stage regarding the admissibility of any material or item of oral evidence the trial court can make a note of such objection and mark the objected document tentatively as an exhibit in the case (or record the objected part of the oral evidence) subject to such objections to be decided at the last stage in the final judgment. If the court finds at the final stage that the objection so raised is C.R. No.7388 of 2010 -8- sustainable the Judge or Magistrate can keep such evidence excluded from consideration. In our view there is no illegality in adopting such a course. (However, we make it clear that if the objection relates to deficiency of stamp duty of a document the court has to decide the objection before proceeding further. For all other objections the procedure suggested above can be followed.) 15. The above procedure, if followed, will have two advantages. First is that the time in the trial court, during evidence-taking stage, would not be wasted on account of raising such objections and the court can continue to examine the witnesses. The witnesses need not wait for long hours, if not days. Second is that the superior court, when the same objection is recanvassed and reconsidered in appeal or revision against the final judgment of the trial court, can determine the correctness of the view taken by the trial court regarding that objection, without bothering to remit the case to the trial court again for fresh disposal. We may also point out that this measure would not cause any prejudice to the parties to the litigation and would not add to their misery or expenses. 16. We, therefore, make the above as a procedure to be followed by the trial courts whenever an objection is raised regarding the admissibility of any material or any item of oral evidence.” 8. In this case, if the documents that are sought to be proved C.R. No.7388 of 2010 -9- have already been filed and tendered in evidence, but they have been “marked” but not “exhibited as evidence” on an assumption that the documents were required to be proved then it should have become possible for the party relying on the document to make his submission as to how the document was capable of being exhibited as public documents. 9. The rules of procedure are hand maids to justice but we are using the very same rules to subvert the cause of justice. The plaintiff in this case was trying to rely on documents of earlier proceedings between the same parties or from whom they are respectively claiming. The suit itself contains a prayer that certain decrees passed earlier are null and void. The reference to the earlier pleadings was definitely relevant to examine the respective stand taken by the parties. The trial Court was completely in error in stating that no explanation had been offered for not offering them earlier in evidence. The documents had already been tendered, are so clear in their relevance that they was no further requirement for any explanation. The practice of calling Ahlmad from the Court for proving copies of decree or pleadings must be immediately stopped. Certified copies produced from Court records must be exhibited as evidence and the relevance will be a matter of argument, if the Court cannot take a summary decision as regards the same. 10. While the prior practice had been at all times to pronounce on the admissibility of document even before the document was assigned an exhibit number, the experience of holding up trial on such objections and inviting Courts to pass orders on such objection C.R. No.7388 of 2010 -10- have left us with no alternative than to devise methods of speedier trial by adopting what are exigent in the manner the Hon'ble Supreme Court has charted the path for trial courts to follow. The practice must, therefore, be to receive a document but if there is an objection and the court is unable to deal with it summarily or when a detailed consideration is necessary, subject to objections and allow parties to advance arguments along with other issues. The issue of relevance or say, admissibility for want of registration, would also be considered at the time of the ultimate disposal of the case. 11. In this case, if the documents had already been filed and marked, it will not be even a necessary requirement for a party to examine himself for exhibiting them as evidence. I direct the trial Court to assign exhibit numbers on the side of the plaintiff and take up the case for arguments in right earnest. 12. In the manner of disposal, I have dispensed with notice only to cut short further delay and not to hold up proceedings for running through an exercise which is needless. There is no need to call even the plaintiff for exhibiting them as documents. I have already observed that they are per se admissible as certified copies of court records. The issue of relevancy of those documents could be examined at the time of arguments. 14. The civil revision is allowed to the above extent. (K. KANNAN) JUDGE December 15, 2010 Pankaj*