IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Revision No.2516 of 2007 Date of decision:19.03.2009 Rajiv Gupta and others ...Petitioners versus Jiwan Lal and others ...Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K.KANNAN Present: Mr. Arun Palli, Senior Advocate with Mr. Jai Bhagwan, Advocate with Mr. Kamalvir Singh Kang, Advocate for the petitioners. Mr. Vikas Mohan Gupta, Advocate for respondent No.1 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 ? K.Kannan, J.(Oral) 1. The revision is against the order of the Rent Controller directing the document produced by him to be treated as the evidence of the tenant. The tenant who sought inspection of the document is the revision petitioner before this Court. 2. The whole controversy arises from a misunderstanding of the provisions of Section 163 of the Indian Evidence Act. The Section 163 provides a procedure that if a party calls upon his adversary to produce a document and that document is so produced and inspected, he is bound to give it as evidence, if the party producing it requires him to do so. This power does not enable the party Civil Revision No.2516 of 2007 - 2 - who produces the document to insist that the other side shall use it as his document only. The learned counsel for the respondent relies upon the decision in Badri Parshad and another v. Shanti Lal Seth and others, reported in AIR 1941 Lahore 228 and the decision in Phoolchand Garg v. Gopaldas Agarwal and others, reported in AIR 1990 Madhya Pradesh 135, to support his contention that such a prayer which he made before the Court below was tenable. 3. The first decision of Lahore Court dealt with the situation where it says that the document which is produced on demand from the party shall be admitted in toto and no part could be withdrawn. The decision of the Madhya Pradesh Court refers to a situation where the defendant who sought for inspection for accounts books and the entry in account books exhibited by the plaintiff and when it states that it would be perfectly permissible for a party to cross examine such entries regarding the disputed entries made by the defendant. These two decisions explain indeed how Section 163 is to be construed. 4. The prayer in the petition is for a different effect that the document which the tenant has inspected shall be to direct the tenant to tender the rent note as his evidence. The prayer made in the petition is clearly untenable and contrary to the express provisions of Section 163 and the law as laid down above. While allowing the Civil Revision, I make it clear that it shall be open for the tenant to seek the exhibition of the document if the landlord choses not to rely upon it. The document will be treated as admission against the plaintiff for any recital that it might contain. On the contrary, if the tenant who has made inspection Civil Revision No.2516 of 2007 - 3 - of the document chooses to ignore it, the landlord is entitled to insist on its reliance. 5. Civil Revision is accordingly disposed of. (K.KANNAN) JUDGE 19.03.2009 sanjeev