Harjit Kaur vs Sukhvinder Singh

H.S. Bedi, J.—By the impugned order the application filed by the plaintiff/respondents under Order XVIII rule 17-A, CPC has been allowed and the plaintiff has been permitted to produce a handwriting expert to prove the signature of the deceased Bahadur Singh, who is alleged to have executed an agreement to sell, which is the subject - matter of dispute between the parties.

Mr. Des Raj Mahajan, Learned Counsel; for the petitioners, has urged that the onus to prove the execution of the agreement lay on the plaintiff � respondent and the had sought to prove the document in question by producing the scribe and the other witnesses. He also urged that the defendant - petitioner in his evidence produced Mr. Satwant Puri, Handwriting Expert, Patiala, who opined that the signature on the agreement to sell did not tally with the signature of Bahadur Singh alleged to have been appended on the account opening form of the Punjab and Sind Bank, Barundi, district Ludhiana. It has been asserted by the respondent therein in his application under Order XVIII, rule 17-A, CPC that it was after the evidence of the defendant had been closed when he became aware of the fact that Bahadur Singh had executed a mortgage deed in favour of the Co - operative Bank, on which he had also appende his signature and, as such, this signature should be allowed to be compared with the disputed signature by some handwriting expert.

After hearing the counsel for the perties I find no merit in this petition. The trial Court has found that as a matter of fact the respondent was not aware of the execution of the mortgage deed earlier and secondly that the mortgage deed was a document the authenticity of which could not be easily questioned by the petitioners and it was on these findings that the application was allowed.

I have examined all the three documents which have been produced before me, i.e., the agreement to sell, the mortgage deed and the account opening form of the Punjab and Sind Bank Barundi, tehsil Ludhiana and on Visual examination it appears to me that the signature do not tally with each other. It would be in the interest of justice that deeper examination is made at the hands of a handwriting expert.

For the reasons recorded above, the Present Petition is dismissed with no order as to costs. It is, however, made clear that should be the respondent produce his additional evidence as permitted by the Court, the Petitioners will be entitled to rebut the evidence produced. The parties are directed to appear before the trial Court on 24th November, 1992. No observation made herein will effect the merits of the decision in the main suit.