Civil Revision No.4155 of 2006 : 1 : IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of Decision: May 12, 2008 Surjeet Kaur ...Petitioner VERSUS Gurmail Singh ...Respondent CORAM: HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH 1. Whether Reporters of local papers 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? Present: Mr.K.K.Garg, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr.B.R.Gupta, Advocate, for the respondent. ***** RANJIT SINGH, J. Respondent Gurmail Singh has filed an application for setting-aside ex-parte proceedings dated 20.8.2001 and ex-parte judgment and decree dated 17.11.2001 standing in favour of petitioner Surjeet Kaur, his wife. He filed two applications on 6.1.2006. In the first application, it is prayed that the register of stamp Civil Revision No.4155 of 2006 : 2 : vendor Surinder Kumar and register of Joginder Singh Bhatia Advocate, Notary Public, Jalandhar be summoned for taking photographs of the registers for the purpose of comparison with the thumb-impression and hand-writing of Surjeet Kaur petitioner. In the second application, it is prayed that Surjit Kaur be summoned for taking her specimen signatures and hand-writing in Punjabi and English and for the purpose of taking her thumb-impressions to be compared with her disputed handwriting and thumb-impressions on the affidavit. Prayer is that summoning of Surjeet Kaur and registers etc.would be necessary for the just decision of the case. The counsel representing petitioner Surjit Kaur opposed the prayer made in both the applications. He would point out that petitioner Surjeet Kaur was cross-examined at length by the counsel representing Gurmail Singh respondent. He had all the opportunities to address any question to Surjeet Kaur at that time and even could have asked her to give thumb impression and handwriting. The counsel did not choose to exercise such an option at the relevant time. It is accordingly urged that such a prayer cannot be granted. The court, after considering rival submissions made before it, has summoned Surjeet Kaur for the purpose of giving specimen signatures and thumb impressions and has also summoned the registers of Surinder Kumar and Joginder Pal Bhatia for the purpose of comparison. Petitioner Surjeet Kaur has thus impugned this order through the present revision petition. It appears that the court while allowing the application has not attended to all the issues that would arise for consideration and Civil Revision No.4155 of 2006 : 3 : determination. Petitioner Surjeet Kaur has an ex-parte judgment in her favour for which respondent Gurmail Singh has filed an application under Order 9 Rule 13 CPC for setting-aside the same. It is not clear from the impugned order as to for what purposes, respondent Gurmail Singh would need the comparison of signatures and handwriting of the petitioner. It is also not clear from the order if the stamp vendor register or the register of Notary Public are on record of the court. If these documents are not on record of the court file, it is not understood as to under what provision the respondent would be entitled to seek their production for taking the photographs etc. Once the petitioner has already been cross-examined and addressed questions, it would be debatable if evidence can be led to contradict the witness in regard to answer she would have given while under cross-examination. It is not clear from the order as to what is the nature of cross-examination of the petitioner. If such questions were addressed only to test the veracity of the witness, then Section 153 of the Indian Evidence Act would exclude the evidence to contradict answer given by the witness to the questions so addressed. It is specifically provided that when a witness has been asked and has answered any question which is relevant to the inquiry only in so far as it tends to shake his credit by injuring his character, then no evidence shall be given to contradict him. The respondent is required to stand on his own legs to prove his case. He has also not shown the relevancy of the signatures or registers etc. for which such a permission could be considered as granted. Accordingly, I am of the view that the permission as granted by the Civil Revision No.4155 of 2006 : 4 : trial court directing the petitioner to give her specimen signatures. and for comparison of the same with those appearing on the registers, which apparently are not on the record of the case file, cannot be sustained. The impugned order, in my view, suffers from material irregularity, which would need interference by this court. The impugned order is accordingly set-aside. The revision is allowed. May 12, 2008 ( RANJIT SINGH ) ramesh JUDGE