C.R No. 6754 of 2009 (O&M) ::1:: IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH C.R No. 6754 of 2009 (O&M) Date of decision : February 16, 2010 Jasbir Singh and another, ...... Petitioner (s) v. Guru Nanak Public School Trust, Sarabha Nagar Ludhiana & others, ...... Respondent(s) *** CORAM : HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE AJAY TEWARI *** Present : Mr. O.P.Goel, Sr. Advocate with Mr. Hari Pal Verma, Advocate for the petitioners. Mr. Sumeet Mahajan, Sr. Advocate with Mr. Sham Lal Bhalla, Advocate for respondent No.1. *** 1. Whether Reporters of Local Newspapers may be allowed to see the judgment ? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not ? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest ? *** AJAY TEWARI, J (Oral) As per the office report, dasti notices issued to the respondents have not been received back served or otherwise. However, Mr. Sumeet Mahajan, Sr. Advocate with Mr. Sham Lal Bhalla, Advocate has put in appearance on behalf of respondent No.1-plaintiff/trust and states that it may not be necessary to serve respondent No.2 and 3 for the purpose of this revision petition since it is the application of respondent No.1 for secondary C.R No. 6754 of 2009 (O&M) ::2:: evidence which has been allowed. This petition has been filed against the order dated 2.9.2009 permitting the plaintiff-respondent No.1 to lead secondary evidence of three trust deeds and one sale deed. The respondent-Trust filed a suit claiming that Guru Nanak Public School, Ludhiana was actually being run by the Trust and that the defendants (the present petitioners) had no locus standi to manage the same, and had sought sundry other reliefs including mandatory injunction directing the petitioners to hand over all the records of the school. During the pendency of the said suit, the instant application was filed claiming that these original documents were in the custody of the petitioners and a direction was sought to be issued to the petitioners to produce the same, and in default thereof, for permission to the respondent to prove the same by way of secondary evidence. It is this application which has been allowed. Learned counsel for the petitioners has argued that the petitioners had denied that any such documents either existed or were in their possession. He states that in view of Section 65 of the Evidence Act, it is clear that the rule of permitting secondary evidence is itself a rule of evidence and that before any secondary evidence is led it is incumbent on the applicant to satisfactorily prove the existence of the original documents and the incapacity of the applicant to produce the same. He has further argued that by the impugned order, the trial Court has permitted to lead secondary evidence on an assumption that first two conditions have been met. In my opinion, the interest of justice would be met if a direction is issued to the trial Court to give a positive finding in its final judgment C.R No. 6754 of 2009 (O&M) ::3:: regarding the existence and incapacity of the respondent to produce these original documents and only if the trial Court arrives at such a finding, the secondary evidence would be led. Ordered accordingly. This petition stands disposed of. As the main petition has since been disposed of, all the pending civil miscellaneous applications, if any, also stand disposed of. ( AJAY TEWARI ) February 16, 2010. JUDGE `kk'