Regular Second Appeal No. 2313 of 2007 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Regular Second Appeal No. 2313 of 2007 Date of Decision: 15.4.2009 *** State of Haryana through Collector & Ors. Appellants VS. Smt. Mewa Devi Respondent CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ARVIND KUMAR, Present:- Mr. Ajay Gulati, AAG Haryana for the appellants. Mr. Sanjay Mittal, Advocate for the respondent. ARVIND KUMAR, J. State of Haryana and others-appellants are aggrieved with the judgment and decree dated 3.5.2007 rendered by the learned First Appellate Court below by dint of which the judgment and decree passed by the learned Trial Court dismissing the suit of the plaintiff has been set aside, consequently the suit has been decreed with the direction to the appellants to make the payment of service benefits of deceased employee to the plaintiff, the widow. The husband of the plaintiff namely Balbir Singh was working with the appellants who died on 4.9.1991. It emerges out from the record that her son was given appointment of compassionate basis. However, claiming that she had not been paid other service benefits of the deceased, the plaintiff filed the suit against the appellants. The suit was contested by the appellants and their stand was that all the payments received from the Government have been paid to the plaintiff and nothing remains due. The learned trial court dismissed the suit on the ground that firstly, the plaintiff had not specifically denied the receipt of payment as shown to have been Regular Second Appeal No. 2313 of 2007 2 made vide Ex.D1, D6 and D8 and further the evidence led by the plaintiff in the shape of testimony of Finger Print Expert was at the stage of rebuttal, leaving no opportunity for the appellant to rebut the same and secondly the suit is hopelessly time barred being filed after 10 years of the death of the employee. The clinching factor in the instant case is the receipts Ex.D1, Ex.D6 and Ex.D8. According to the appellants they made the payment of service benefits of deceased employee to the plaintiff vide the same while the plaintiff denied the execution thereof. It emerges out from the perusal of judgment of learned first Appellate Court below that when the defendants took the said plea of having made the payment vide the aforesaid receipts, they themselves even did not furnish the copies of said receipts and thus, the plaintiff while filing the replication though not specifically denied her thumb impression thereupon, but do so impliedly. It is only when the appellants adduced their evidence, they produced the receipts on record, leaving the plaintiff to controvert the said receipts by examining the Expert witness in rebuttal evidence since her affirmative evidence was already over. The Expert, in his report, after comparison of standard thumb impressions of plaintiff with the impression appearing on the said receipts, found the same not of the plaintiff. The appellant even did not make any request for leading additional evidence as against the evidence of expert witness produced by the plaintiff. Not only this, the another interesting feature which the learned trial court did not appreciate is that none of the witnesses in those presence the payment was shown to have made to the plaintiff namely Jai Dayal, Bhata Ram and Bhagwan Dass, School Master, supported the case of the appellant and denied making of any payment to the plaintiff in their presence. All these factors rightly led the appellate Court below to discard the receipts Ex.D1, D6 and D8 and to hold the plaintiff entitled to payment as shown to have made against those receipts along with interest.So far as the question of limitation is concerned, it has proved on record that in the year 2001, the plaintiff got issued a legal notice to the appellant under Section 80 CPC, which they admittedly not replied, giving fresh cause of action of the plaintiff. Not only this, by virtue of Ex.D13, it has come on record that since 2002 the appellant had not matured the case of the husband of the plaintiff, leading to the conclusion that law of Regular Second Appeal No. 2313 of 2007 3 limitation does not come in the way of plaintiff. In view of this there is no room to interfere in the findings recorded by the first appellate Court below, while setting aside the judgment and decree of the learned trial court. It cannot be said that the findings returned by the appellate Court below suffer from any illegality or perversity or that the same are based on no evidence. No question of law, much less substantial question of law arises for determination in this regular second appeal, which is accordingly dismissed in limine. (ARVIND KUMAR) JUDGE April 15,2009 Jiten