Civil Revision No.4514 of 2011 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Revision No.4514 of 2011 Date of Decision:27.07.2011 Anil Chopra ......Petitioner Versus Gurdip Kaur and others .....Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR. Present: Mr.Sudhir Paruthi, Advocate, for the petitioner. **** M EHINDER S INGH S ULLAR , J.(oral) As is evident from the record that the evidence of the petitioner- defendant was closed by the trial Court, by way of order dated 20.04.2011. 2. Aggrieved by the said order, the petitioner-defendant filed Civil Revision No.3089 of 2011, which was accepted by a Co-ordinate Bench of this Court (Ram Chand Gupta, J.), by means of order dated 10.05.2011, the operative part of which is, as under:- “In view of these facts, the present revision petition is accepted. Impugned order is modified to the extent that learned trial Court is directed to grant one opportunity to petitioner-defendant to produce his witness, namely, Kamaljit Singh at his own responsibility by taking dasti summons subject to payment of `5,000/- as cost, which shall be a condition precedent. Disposed of accordingly.” 3. In pursuance thereof, Head Constable Kamaljit Singh was present in the trial Court on 08.06.2011, but he did not bring the relevant record and on the basis of his statement, the trial Court passed the following order:- “HC Kamaljit Singh has come present and has suffered statement that the summoned record is not in his possession and has informed the court in writing that as per their record, the file has been sent to the Incharge Economic Wing Jalandhar and is in the possession of Balwinder Iqbal Singh, Incharge Economic Wing, Jalandhar for the investigation. Civil Revision No.4514 of 2011 2 Counsel for defendants has sought some time from the court to move an application. Let file be put up after lunch break.” 4. Thereafter, on the same day, the petitioner-defendant moved an application, to direct the Head Constable Kamaljit Singh, to produce the summoned record. The application was dismissed by the trial Court, by virtue of impugned order dated 08.06.2011, which in substance is, as under:- “Now, by filing the present application, defendants have sought the directions from this court to requisition the record from Sh.Balwinder Iqbal Singh or to issue directions to the office of Commissioner of Police to produce the summoned record. The careful perusal of the order dated 10.5.2011, passed by Hon'ble Punjab & Haryana High Court reveals that while making submissions before the Hon'ble High Court, defendants had sought the permission of the Hon'ble Punjab & Haryana High Court to examine only one witness namely HC Kamaljit Singh from PS Div. No.4, who has to produce the summoned record. The counsel for the defendants had prayed for only one opportunity to examine the said witness, at their own responsibility. Vide the above said order passed by Hon'ble High Court, this court was directed to grant only one opportunity to the defendants to produce the witness HC Kamaljit Singh at their own responsibility by issuing dasti summons. This court has duly complied with the directions issued by the Hon'ble Punjab & Haryana High Court. The spirit of the order passed by the Hon'ble High Court was that only one opportunity was to be granted to the defendants to examine witness HC Kamaljit Singh, at their own responsibility, subject to payment of costs. No such permission was sought by the defendants from the Hon'ble High Court to examine any other witness. Granting another opportunity to the defendants to examine the witness from the Economic Wing, Jalandhar, would amount to violation of directions given by the Hon'ble High Court, vide order dated 10.5.2011. There is no justification to allow the present application and the same is hereby dismissed and evidence of the defendants is treated as closed. Now to come up on 19.7.11 for rebuttal evidence of the plaintiff. Counsel for plaintiff is directed to produce witness Jaswant Singh Cheema, who was examined in chief in their rebuttal evidence on the date fixed, as the case is history sheeted one and pertains to samadhan category.” 5. The petitioner-defendant did not feel satisfied with the impugned Civil Revision No.4514 of 2011 3 order and preferred the present revision petition, invoking the provisions of Article 227 of the Constitution of India. 6. After hearing the learned counsel for the petitioner, going through the record with his valuable help and after deep consideration of the entire matter, to my mind, the impugned order cannot legally be sustained. 7. What is not disputed here is that, this Court directed the trial Court, to grant one opportunity to the petitioner-defendant, to produce his witness Head Constable Kamaljit Singh, along with the record through the medium of order dated 10.05.2011. The petitioner-defendant produced the witness in the court, but he did not bring the record on the ground that it is not in his possession. That means, the petitioner-defendant is not at fault and it was the duty of the Court, to direct the Head Constable Kamaljit Singh, to procure the necessary record for recording his statement in this relevant connection. To me, the examination of Head Constable Kamaljit Singh along with the relevant record is essential to decide the real controversy between the parties. Thus, the trial Court committed a procedural irregularity & illegality and declined the request of the petitioner- defendant on a very hyper technical ground. Therefore, the impugned order is not legally maintainable in the obtaining circumstances of the case. 8. In the light of aforesaid reasons, the instant revision petition is accepted, the impugned order is hereby set aside and in pursuance of the earlier order dated 10.05.2011 passed by this Court in Civil Revision No.3089 of 2011, the trial Court is well-advised to direct the Head Constable Kamaljit Singh, to bring the relevant record of the case and then to record his statement. If, Kamaljit Singh fails to appear and bring the record, then the trial Court would be at liberty, to exercise its jurisdiction, to invoke the coercive methods in this relevant behalf. The Registry is directed to send a copy of this order to the trial Court forthwith, for strict compliance. July 27, 2011 (MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR) seema JUDGE Civil Revision No.4514 of 2011 4