Nakka Hanumanthu and Another vs Karnati Shankariah and Others

Parvatha Rao, J.

1 In this Civil Revision Petition, the decision of the trial court regarding the marking of a document put to the witness is questioned. P.W. 1, the plaintiff, was sought to be confronted with the said document, an agreement of sale allegedly executed by P.W. 1 in favour of a defendant, while being cross-examined on behalf of that defendant. The trial court held that the said document should be marked through that defendant or witness on his behalf and not through a witness on the plaintiff''s side while he was being cross-examined, when he denied knowledge of it. This is not a case where only the signature portion of a document was put to the witness for eliciting his answer as to whether the signature was his or not.

I am of the view that the Civil Revision Petition is without any merit because there is no case decided.

The Supreme Court held in Baldevdas Shivlal and Another Vs. Filmistan Distributors (India) P. Ltd. and Others, referring to its decision in Major S.S. Khanna Vs. Brig. F.J. Dillon, that

"But it was not decided in Major S.S. Khanna''s case, that every order of the Court in the course of a suit amounts to a case decided. A case may be said to be decided, if the Court adjudicates for the purposes of the suit some right or obligation of the parties in controversy; every order in the suit cannot be regarded as a case decided within the meaning of Section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure."

The Supreme Court also observed in that case that by ordering that a question may properly be put to a witness who was being examined, no case was decided by the trial court. In a recent judgment of this Court in K. Obaiah, In Re, 1988 (2) ALT 435 Syed Shah Mohd. Quadri. J., held that an order admitting or refusing to admit a document does not amount to a ''case decided'' and while so holding, he observed as follows:-

"It is now well settled that though the word ''case'' is wider than the word ''suit'', every order in the suit cannot be regarded as ''case decided''. The order sought to be revised must decide some right or obligation of the parties in controversy to bring it within the meaning of ''case decided''. Every case is decided by an order but every order does not decide a case within the meaning of the said explanation to Section 115 C.P.C."

In The Bank of Baroda, Visakhapatnam v. Pilla Narasimhaswami Patrudu and Ors., C.R.P. No. 3541 of 1977 dated 2-8-1979 also Narasinga Rao, J., of this Court held that "by admitting or rejecting a document in evidence it cannot be said that a case has been decided within the meaning of Section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure". The judgments of the Gujarat High Court in Bhachibai alias Kunverbai Vs. Sha Virji Devji, and of the Madras High Court in T.N. Govindarajulu Vs. Lakshmi Ammal by her agent P.V. Narasimhan, were referred to in support of that view. In the latter decision, the Subordinate Judge look a wrong view of the non-admissibility of the medical report by itself and the Madras High Court held that at best it amounted to an erroneous decision on a question of law in which no question of jurisdiction was involved and that on the question of non-admissibility of evidence the decision of the lower Court was not amenable for correction under the revisional jurisdiction. After referring to the said two decisions, Narsinga Rao J., observed in Bank of Baroda''s case (4 supra) "The ratio decidendi underlying in both these decisions is such orders with regard to the admissibility or non-admissibility of document or evidence are not cases decided" within the meaning of Section 115". In Babulal v. Jugal kishor, AIR 1954 Nagpur, 254 Mudholkar, J., of Nagpur High Court held as follows:-

"What the Court below has done is that it has refused to treat as relevant 1he evidence of certain witnesses on the ground that it is hearsay. It was open to the Court to decide whether the particular evidence adduced before it was "admissible or not. Even though its decision on the point may be wrong that is not a question of jurisdiction and therefore its finding is not open to challenge in revision."

In the light of the above decisions, is there any ''case decided'' in the present matter? The only question decided by the trial Court in the present case is regarding the marking of a document through a witness of the opposite party and not even on its admissibility. The witness through whom the document was sought to be marked, in fact denied knowledge of it The trial Court did not rule out the document being marked through a proper witness. Thus no right or obligation of the parties to the suit is involved and no question of jurisdiction is involved.

I am therefore of the view that the order of the trial Court questioned in this Civil Revision Petition does not amount to any case decided within the meaning of the said expression in Section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

The Civil Revision Petition is therefore dismissed.