CR No.959 of 2009 - 1 - HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH **** CR No.959 of 2009 (O&M) DATE OF DECISION: 10.11.2009 **** Ranjit Kaur @ Rajnish Kaur . . . . Petitioner VS. Harmohit Palson and others . . . . Respondents **** CR No.1012 of 2009 (O&M) DATE OF DECISION: 10.11.2009 **** Ranjit Kaur @ Rajnish Kaur . . . . Petitioner VS. Harmohit Palson and others . . . . Respondents **** CORAM : HON’BLE MR.JUSTICE SURYA KANT **** 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. Surinder Joshi, Advocate for the petitioner Mr. Mohit Jaggi, Advocate for respondent No.1 Mr. Rajpal Singh, Advocate for respondent No.2 to 4 ***** SURYA KANT J.(ORAL) (1). This order shall dispose of Civil Revision No.959 & 1012 of 2009 as the common question of law and facts are involved in both the cases. For the sake brevity, the facts are being extracted from Civil Revision No.959 of 2009. (2). The first respondent – the plaintiff is a minor. He has filed a suit for declaration that he is owner in possession of CR No.959 of 2009 - 2 - 1/5th share in House No.588/B, Upkarnagar, Factory Area, Patiala on the basis of a Will dated 28.06.2003 which is alleged to have been executed by his deceased-father. (3). Since the original Will is not available having been lost, the respondent-plaintiff sought to lead secondary evidence to prove the said Will. His application has been allowed by the trial Court vide the impugned order dated 06.01.2009. (4). While permitting the respondent-plaintiff to lead secondary evidence, the learned Civil Court has observed as follows:- “After hearing the learned counsel for the parties and properly perusing the file, this Court is of the considered view that the plaintiff has brought on record the copy of the DDR No.16 dated 19.04.2005, copy of Will along with copy of report of handwriting expert where the signature of Ashwani Kumar was examined by expert. After properly perusing the judicial file containing photocopy of the Will, expert report and DDR qua the lost Will in the light of settle judicial precedents, this court is of the considered view that the plaintiff has sufficiently proved the existence of original Will and its loss and the Will in question is a material document to settle the matter in controversy judiciously.” (5). The petitioner-defendant impugns the above-stated order primarily on the strength of the statement of Chameli Devi (PW1) – the grandmother of the minor plaintiff who is said to have admitted in her deposition that she has neither seen the Will nor she gave the original Will or its copy to her Advocate at the time of filing of the suit. CR No.959 of 2009 - 3 - (6). Having heard learned counsel for the parties at some length and on perusal of the impugned order and other material on record, I do not find any ground to interfere with the impugned order dated 06.01.2009. The learned Civil Court has referred to various documents and material which clearly indicates that there was a Will dated 28.06.2003. In these circumstances, the permission accorded by the Civil Court to lead secondary evidence to prove the existence of the Will especially, when the rights of a minor are involved, calls for no interference by this Court. Suffice it to observe that merely by permitting the respondent-plaintiff to lead secondary evidence to prove the existence of Will, the Civil Court has not accepted the genuineness of the Will or its contents in evidence. (7). Dismissed. (SURYA KANT) JUDGE 10.11.2009 vishal shonkar