Jayaraman vs G. Navaneethakannan and N. Vijayalakshmi

G. Rajasuria, J.—Animadverting upon the order dated 24.06.2008 passed by the learned District Munsif, Karaikal in I.A. No. 219 of 2008

in O.S. No. 204 of 2005, this civil revision petition is focussed.

Heard the learned Counsel for the petitioner and the learned Counsel appearing for the respondents.

A ""resume"" of facts, which are absolutely necessary and germane for the disposal of this revision would run thus:

The revision petitioner/plaintiff has filed the suit in O.S. No. 204 of 2005 for permanent injunction. The plaintiff adduced evidence. When the

matter was posted for the evidence to be adduced on the defendant''s side, the defendants came forward with an application for reception of

documents and that was allowed. The lower Court ignoring the factum of the document having been not stamped, simply permitted the petitioner to

proceed with the matter by allowing them to mark the document and that too without recording the objection of the plaintiff. Subsequently, the

petitioner also took out an interim application to pay the stamp duty with penalty and that was also allowed. Being aggrieved by and dissatisfied

with the same, the present civil revision petition has been filed on various grounds.

In this factual matrix, I am of the considered opinion that when the process of having collected the stamp duty and penalty have been over, the

same cannot be found fault with in view of the decision of this Court reported in A.C. Lakshmipathy and another Vs. A.M. Chakrapani Reddiar

and five others, . However, ignoring the decision of the Hon''ble Apex Court reported in AIR 2001 Sc 1158 (Bipin Shantilal Panchal v. State of

Gujarat and Anr.), the lower court simply marked the document without recording the objection made by the plaintiff. An excerpt from the Apex

Court''s judgment is extracted hereunder for ready reference:

When so recast, the practice which can be a better substitute is this: Whenever an objection is raised during evidence-taking stage regarding

the admissibility of any material or item of oral evidence the trial court can make a note of such objection and mark the objected document

tentatively as an exhibit in the case (or record the objected part of the oral evidence) subject to such objections to be decided at the last stage in

the final judgment. If the Court finds at the final stage that the objection so raised is sustainable the Judge or Magistrate can keep such evidence

excluded from consideration. In our view there is no illegality in adopting such a course. (However, we make it clear that if the objection relates to

deficiency of stamp duty of a document the court has to decide the objection before proceeding further. For all other objections the procedure

suggested above can be followed.)

The above procedure, if followed, will have two advantages. First is that the time in the trial court, during evidence-taking stage, would not be

wasted on account of raising such objections and the court can continue to examine the witnesses. The witnesses need not wait for long hours, if

not days. Second is that the superior court, when the same objection is recanvassed and reconsidered in appeal or revision against the final

judgment of the trial court, can determine the correctness of the view taken by the trial court regarding that objection, without bothering to remit the

case to the trial court again for fresh disposal. We may also point out that this measure would not cause any prejudice to the parties to the litigation

and would not add to their misery or expenses.

In such view of the matter, this civil revision petition is disposed of with a direction to the lower Court to record the objection of the petitioner in

the deposition itself in brackets, reserving its power to adjudicate on the validity and admissibility of it while deciding the case finally. No costs.

Consequently, the connected miscellaneous petition is closed.