RSA No. 634 of 2005 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH RSA No.634 of 2005 Decided on : 02-02-2009 Ram Singh ....Appellant VERSUS Gajjan Singh ....Respondent CORAM:- HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MAHESH GROVER Present:- Mr. Suresh Goel, Advocate for the appellant Mr. Tribhuwan Singla, Advocate for the respondent MAHESH GROVER, J This appeal is directed against the judgments of the learned Trial Court dated 12.4.2004 and the First Appellate Court dated 11.5.2004. In a suit for recovery which is initiated by the respondent on the basis of pronote, the appellant who was the defendant took up the plea that he has paid the amount. The plaintiff-respondent had filed a suit for recovery of Rs.60,000/- as principal amount alongwith Rs. 21,250/- by way of interest. The defendant having set up the plea that he has paid the amount exhibited the document (Ex.D-1) to contend that it was a receipt indicating the payment of the entire amount to the plaintiff-respondent. It was stated that the receipt was executed in the presence of one Roshan Singh. The document during the course of proceedings was not objected to in so far as the admissibility of the same was concerned. Both the Courts returned a finding that Ex. D-1 could not have been looked into as it was un-stamped. Learned counsel for the appellant assailed the aforesaid findings of the Courts below to say that it was not necessary that the RSA No. 634 of 2005 2 document be stamped. Reliance was placed on AIR 2001 SC 1321 wherein it was observed as under:- “If the trial Court finds that the instrument is insufficiently stamped, it should have asked the appellant as to whether he would remit the deficient portion of the stamp duty together with a penalty amounting to ten times the deficiency. If the appellant agrees to remit the said amount the Court has to proceed with the trial after admitting the document in evidence. In the meanwhile, the Court has to forward a copy of the document to the Collector for the purpose of adjudicating on the question of deficiency of the stamp duty as provided in S.40(a)(b) of the Act. Only if the appellant is unwilling to remit the amount the Court is to forward the original of the document itself to the Collector for the purpose of adjudicating on the question of deficiency of the stamp duty. The penalty of ten times indicated therein is the upper limit and the Collector shall take into account all factors concerned in deciding as to what should be the proper amount of penalty to be imposed.” It is contended that merely because the document was not stamped the same could not be precluded from consideration. On the other hand, learned counsel for the respondent stated that Ex.D-1 on which strong reliance has been placed was not proved in accordance with law and even if the findings of the Court below regarding the stamping of the document is to be ignored, it could not be relied upon for the purposes of granting any benefit to the appellant. I have heard learned counsel for the parties and have perused the impugned judgments. RSA No. 634 of 2005 3 A perusal of the impugned judgments shows that document Ex.D-1 by the appellant to which the plaintiff-respondent had not objected to. Admissibility of a document without an objection does not dispense with the standard of proving it, which is required to prove the contents of the same. The appellant who relied upon the receipt was therefore under a bounden duty to prove the contents of the same. No scribe was produced and no other witnesses were produced except one Roshan Singh, DW1 in whose presence the amount was allegedly paid. His testimony, however, reveals that he does not know as to whether any signatures were appended by the appellant on the receipt or not. He has further stated in his testimony that the receipt was accepted for an amount of Rs.1 lakh whereas Ex. D-1 is merely for a sum of Rs. 60,000/-. In this view of the matter, testimony of Roshan Singh is not inspiring enough to accept the stand of the appellant. It is thus concluded that the appellant has failed to substantiate the contents of Ex. D-1 by producing witnesses and has failed to prove the execution of the same and therefore the findings of both the Courts below regarding the document being stamped would be of no relevance as the same has to be discarded in view of the fact that the same has not been proved in accordance with law. The burden to prove has not been discharged satisfactorily. No substantial question of law has been shown to have arisen in the present appeal and the same being devoid of any merit is hereby dismissed. February 2 , 2009 (Mahesh Grover) rekha Judge