spb/- 1 wp5116-11.sxw IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CIVIL APPELLATE SIDE JURISDICTION WRIT PETITION NO. 5116 OF 2011 Jankalyan Foundation, Registered Society, through its Secretary -Rudhir Narayan Jha ... Petitioner. V/s. 1 Solapur Municipal Corporation & Ors. ... Respondents. ----- Mr. Tushar Sonawane for the Petitioner. ----- CORAM : D. G. KARNIK, J. DATE : 02nd AUGUST, 2011. P.C. : 1 The petition is directed against an order dated 9th March, 2011, rejecting the petitioner’s application for permission to adduce secondary evidence in respect of two documents. 2 Document at Exh.33/1 is a copy of the letter dated 16th February, 2008, allegedly written by the Health Officer, Solapur Municipal Council to defendant no.3. Original of the document would, therefore, be in possession of the defendant no.3. No notice of production of the original was issued by the plaintiff to the defendant no.3, who would ordinarily be in possession of the document at Exh. 33/1. In the absence of any spb/- 2 wp5116-11.sxw notice issued by the petitioner to defendant no.3 for production of the document, secondary evidence about the same cannot be allowed. 3 The document at Exh. 33/2 is the letter allegedly written by the Health Officer, Solapur Municipal Corporation to the petitioner itself. If so, the petitioner could have produced the document. There is no averment in the application for permission to produce secondary evidence that the original addressed to the petitioner is not in its possession and if so why. In the circumstances, no secondary evidence regarding the said document also could be allowed to be adduced by the petitioner. 4 The learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the office copies of letters 33/1 and 33/2 were produced by the Health Officer, Solapur Municipal Corporation before the Police Inspector, Crime Investigation Branch, Solapur and certified copies thereof can be allowed as secondary evidence. What Health Officer produced before the Police Inspector were only the office copies of the alleged letters dated 16th February, 2008 written by him to the defendant no.3 and the petitioner respectively. The office copies themselves are the secondary evidence of the originals. The certified copies of the same, if any, issued by the spb/- 3 wp5116-11.sxw Inspector of Police would, therefore, in the nature of the copies of the copy and were not a secondary evidence and not admissible in evidence. The trial court, therefore, committed no error in rejecting the application for permission to produce and the exhibit certified copies issued by the Inspector of Police as secondary evidence of the originals. There is no merit in the petition. The petition is rejected summarily. [D.G. KARNIK, J.]