CR No. 4531 of 2008 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH CR No. 4531 of 2008 Decided on : 11-12-2008 Karnail Singh ....Petitioner VERSUS Vashakhi Ram ....Respondent CORAM:- HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MAHESH GROVER Present:- Mr. Amarjit Markan, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. Tejinder K. Joshi, Advocate for the respondent MAHESH GROVER, J This revision petition is directed against the order dated 2.8.2008. In the suit which was preferred by the respondent vide orders dated 12.4.2007 learned Trial Court observed while asking the learned counsel for the plaintiff to examine the plaintiff alongwith attesting witnesses on the next date of hearing and 2-3 hearings were granted without any special result. Thereafter, on 2.8.2008 the Court recorded that respondent Vashakhi Ram need not be examined first as he was not a signatory to the agreement which is being invoked in the suit. Learned counsel for the petitioner who was the defendant refused to cross-examine the witnesses who were examined prior to the plaintiff-respondent. Learned counsel for the petitioner contended that the respondent being the plaintiff was required to be examined first as per the mandate under Order 18 Rule 3-A which is reproduced as under:- “Party to appear before other witnesses – Where a CR No. 4531 of 2008 2 party himself wishes to appear as a witness, he shall so appear before any other witness on his behalf has been examined, unless the Court, for reasons to be recorded, permits him to appear as his own witness at a later stage." He also relied on the observations of the Full Bench reported as 1979 PLR 354 titled as 'The Amritsar Improvement Trust versus Smt. Ishri Devi' wherein this Court observed as follows:- “Para 12. Before parting with this judgment, however, a note of caution must be sounded. Holding that the aforesaid rule is directory and the permission may be granted at a later stage, is not to say that the mandate of the legislature in this context is to be easily disregarded or lightly deviated from. It is plain that as a normal rule the legislature requires the testimony of the party to be recorded first and the rationale there is not far to seek. Apparently in order to prevent an easy deviation from the rule, it has been laid down that the court shall record its reasons for doing so. It is to be hoped that the trial Courts, in whom primarily the discretion has been vested, would keep both the letter and the spirit of the rule in mind before according permission there under in exceptional circumstances and not whittle the same down by allowing too easy and indiscriminate deviation therefrom.” Learned counsel for the respondent on the other hand contended that there is no infirmity in the impugned order. After hearing learned counsel for the parties, I am of the considered opinion that the impugned order deserves to be set aside and the respondent-plaintiff is required to be examined in the first instance before CR No. 4531 of 2008 3 any other witnesses are to be examined keeping in view the observations of the Full Bench and the mandate of Order 18 Rule 3-A. In this view of the matter, revision petition is accepted with a direction to the Trial Court to record the testimony of the respondent- plaintiff in the first instance. December 11, 2008 (Mahesh Grover) rekha Judge