Civil Revision No. 7323 of 2009 [1] IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Revision No. 7323 of 2009 (O&M) Date of decision: 18.1.2010 Surinder Pal and another .. Petitioners v. Pawan Kumar ..Respondent. CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RAJESH BINDAL Present: Mr. P. L. Singla, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. Arun Jain, Senior Advocate with Mr. Amit Jain, Advocate for the respondents. ... Rajesh Bindal J. Challenge in the present petition is to the order dated 11.11.2009, passed by the learned court below, whereby the application filed by the petitioners- defendants to lead additional evidence in rebuttal to produce Handwriting Expert, was dismissed. Briefly, the facts are that the respondent-plaintiff filed a suit for possession by way of specific performance of agreement to sell against the petitioners-defendants, in which three issues were framed. The onus of issue No. 1 was on the respondent-plaintiff, whereas for issues No. 2 and 3, the same was on the petitioners-defendants. The learned trial court, considering the fact that the onus of issue No. 2 in which the respondent-plaintiff had produced expert evidence was on the petitioners-defendants, did not find merit in the prayer made and dismissed the application. Learned counsel for the petitioners-defendants submitted that all the issues in the suit filed by the respondent-plaintiff are inter-related. The respondent- plaintiff is to make out a case for possession by way of specific performance. Unless the agreement to sell is proved, the case is bound to fail and it was in the process of leading that evidence that the respondent-plaintiff had produced the expert witness, which should be considered to be his evidence in affirmative and the petitioners-defendants deserved to be granted an opportunity to rebut the same by way of an expert evidence, as the stand of the petitioners-defendants is that the Civil Revision No. 7323 of 2009 [2] agreement to sell is false and fabricated document. In the absence of any expert evidence on their behalf, their case may be prejudiced. On the other hand, learned counsel for the respondent-plaintiff submitted that on an earlier occasion, the matter came to this Court when the prayer made by the respondent to lead evidence in rebuttal in response to the evidence led by the petitioners-defendants on issue No. 2 was dismissed by the learned court below and this Court vide order dated 16.4.2009 had permitted the respondent-plaintiff to lead evidence in rebuttal on that issue. Once the onus of issue No. 2 was on the petitioners-defendants, they cannot be permitted to lead evidence in rebuttal thereof and the prayer made by them before the court below has rightly been dismissed. Having heard learned counsel for the parties, I do not find any merit in the submissions made by learned counsel for the petitioners-defendants. As to what kind of evidence a party leads on the issues, the onus of which is put on him, depends upon his wisdom. It cannot be claimed as a matter of right that the other party has led evidence in a particular manner and the same is required to be rebutted in that manner only by the first party. The principles regarding rebuttal evidence are well-settled. It is only on those issues that a party can be permitted to lead evidence in rebuttal where the initial onus of that issue is on the other party. In the present case, the onus of issue No. 2 was on the petitioners-defendants, on which they had led some evidence in affirmative. In rebuttal to the evidence led by the petitioners-defendants, vide earlier order of this Court, the respondent-plaintiff was permitted to lead evidence in rebuttal. Now the contention of the petitioners- defendants cannot be accepted to hold that the evidence led by the respondent- plaintiff be treated as evidence in affirmative on issue No. 2 and the petitioners- defendants be given chance to rebut the same. Accordingly, the present petition is dismissed. (Rajesh Bindal) Judge 18.1.2010 mk