Ahmed Pillai Meera Sahib vs Sankaran Madhavan

T.K. Joseph, J.

This Civil Revision Petition is by the plaintiff in a suit for recovery of the amount under a promissory note. Issues 3 to 5 dealt with the question whether the promissory note was properly stamped and whether it was admissible in evidence. The learned Munsiff heard these as preliminary issues and held against the plaintiff. The revision is directed against the findings on these issues.

Shri. Subramonian Potti did not canvass the correctness of the view taken by the Munsiff and he rightly conceded that that would not properly arise in revision. The point urged was that at an earlier stage of the suit, the document had been admitted in evidence and that the court therefore had no juris- diction to decide the question afresh.

A similar question arose for decision in Kannu Asan v. Travancore Forward Bank Ltd. 1956 KLT 203 (A). My learned brother Sankaran, J. held that before this objection could be raised, the document should have been admitted in evidence in conformity with the provisions of Order 13, Rule 4 of the Code of Civil Procedure. This rule enjoins a duty on the court admitting a document in evidence to endorse thereon, among other things, a statement that the document has been admitted in evidence. The Privy Council stressed the importance of such an endorsement in Sadik Hussain Khan v. Hashin Ali Khan AIR 1916 PC 27 (B). Sankaran, J. has also adopted the view taken by the Madras High Court in Attili Venkanna Vs. Parasuram Byas trading under the name of Parasuram Doulatram and Others, and Sri. Yerri Swami v. Vannurappa AIR 1949 Mad 300 (D). Shri. Potti brought to my notice a decision of the Allahabad High Court reported in M.K. Lodhi Vs. Zia-ul Haq, where a contrary view was taken viz, that Section 36 of the Stamp Act did not warrant the conclusion that the section iad application only in cases in which the court had admitted the document after consciously applying its mind to the question of admissibility.

It was held that if no objection regarding admissibility was raised before the document was admitted in evidence, such objection could not subsequently be raised. It is seen irom the report that a document had been admitted in evidence and the proper endorsement regarding such admission had been made by the trial court. The objection regarding admis-sibility was raised for the first time at the stage of final hearing. The facts here are different. The defendant had raised the objection regarding the admissibility of the document in the written state-ment.

There is no proper endorsement of admission in evidence, so that it cannot be said that the document was ever admitted in evidence. The Nagpur High Court in Sitaram v. Thakurdas AIR 1919 Nag 141 (F) held that unless the Court admitted a document not properly stamped after applying its mind consciously to the question whether the document was admissible or not the document could not be deemed to have been admitted in evidence. In Ratanlal Vs. Daudas and Another, this question arose for decision before the Rajasthan High Court. After reviewing practically the whole case law on the subject, Wanchoo, C. J, observed:

"A careful review, therefore, of the authorities leads us to the conclusion that once an instrument has been admitted in evidence, either after judicial determination of the issue relating thereto, where such issue has been raised, or because no objection was taken to its admissibility, but not by pure mistake, such admission cannot be called in question at any stage of the same suit or proceeding on the ground of insuffciency of of stamp".

Even according to this view, there must be a judicial determination of the question when the same is raised prior to such admission. Even though the specific issues now decided had not been raised at the time the document was marked as Ext. A, the objection was there and there is nothing to show that the court decided the question whether the document was properly stamped. On the facts of this case it is not possible to hold that the court decided the question at any stage prior to the decision of these issues. The ground taken by the petitioner is thus without substance. The Civil Revision Petition is therefore dismissed with costs.