Nalluru Basavaiah Naidu vs Takkellu Venkateswarulu

Viswanatha Sastri, J.—The Plaintiff is the Appellant in this second appeal. The suit was brought on an insufficiently stamped promissory note which was for this reason rejected by the Courts below and the suit was dismissed. The question is whether having regard to the provisions of Section 36 of the Stamp Act, the Courts below were right in rejecting the promissory note; in other words, whether the promissory note had not a heady been admitted in evidence. The Courts below were of the opinion that die stage had not been reached at which the admissibility of the promissory note could not be questioned. Section 36 of the Stamp Act prohibits the rejection of a document once it has been admitted in evidence even in a subsequent stage of the same suit and it is clear that under this section, objection could not be taken when there had been such admission. If a promissory note had in fact been admitted in evidence, though in disregard of the provisions of Section 35, it will be available as evidence in that proceeding for all purposes has if it had been properly stamped at the outset. This is the effect of Section 36 and the section would apply even where, as in the present case the document is the foundation of the suit: Mangala Lakshmappa Vs. Pathala Musud Sahib, ;: Venkata Reddi v. Hussain Setti, ILR 57 Mad 779 : AIR 1934 Mad 383) (B). Section 36 would apply even though the document had been wrongly admitted or admitted without objection The object of the Stamp Act is to provide revenue for the State and not to arm a litigant with a weapon of defence and Section 36 proceeds on that basis. If the objection as to the defective stamping is not taken or is overruled and the document is admitted in evidence, the matter stops there and neither the parties nor .the Court can thereafter agitate the question of its admissibility. The trial Court which admits the document, as well as the appellate and revision Courts are all boucl� to act upon the document ogre it has been admitted in evidence as pointed out Alagappa Chetti Vs. A.L.A.L.N. Narayanan Chettiar, and Mangala Lakshmappa Vs. Pathala Musud Sahib, . The provisions of Order 13, Rule 3, Code of Civil Procedure, empowering the Court to reject at any stage of the suit any document which in considers irrelevant or otherwise inadmissible, is object to the provisions of Section 36 of the Stamp Act. Nallajerla Satyavati and Others Vs. Vijjapu Pallaya, .

The crucial question is, whether in the circumstances of the case, there has been an ''admission'' of the promissory note in evidence within the meaning of Section 36 of the Stamp Act. The promissory note of was produced along with the plaint and filed into on 19th January 1051. The objection was intake in the written statement to the validity of the note and an issue was framed in these in "Whether the suit promissory note is not tine, NBH Pttd and binding on the Defendant?"

He trial began on 4th September 1951, and on that ate the Defendant''s pleader put in a memo, stating that he did not question the genuineness of the promissory note but questioned its validity. The plaintiff was examined as P.W. 1 and in the course of his residence, the promissory note was put to him and file proved it. The promissory note was thereupon marked as Ex.'' A-l in the case. I have looked into the document and find that it bears the following: In the Court, of the District Munsif of Ongole.

O. S. No. 31 of 1951.

Produced by the Plaintiff on 19th January 1951. Proved by P.W. 1, 4th September 1951. , Marked as Ex. A-l.

In are the initials of the District Munsif ''T.A.R/'' below these entries in his own handwriting. The usual appendix of evidence attached to the judgment contains the following entry:

Documents marked for Plaintiff. Ex. A-l. 12-9-1948. Suit pronote executed by the Defendant in favour of the Plaintiff.

the effect of the entries on the document has to be understood in the light of Order 13, Rule 4 and 6 of the'' CPC Code. The particulars required by Order 13, Rule 4, to be endorsed on a document which has been admitted in evidence in the suit are ''endorsed on Ex. A-l. When questions as to the admissibility of evidence are raised during the course [Of the trial, they should be decided as they arise and "idled not be reserved until judgment in the case. If the document is not rejected with an endorsement or the particulars required under Order 13 and on the other hand the document bears all the particulars of the endorsement required to be 4s by Order 13, Rule 4, and the endorsement of the particulars is initialed by the Judge it has to be Ten that there was admission of the document in evidence for the purposes of Section 36 of the Stamp Act. Of the objection taken to the admissibility the promissory note before the trial began, the cement was proved by P.W. 1 and was marked A-l. The District Munsif, who tried the has initialed in his own hand at the foot of the these required to be made by Order 13, Rule 4.

Nevertheless, it is argued that the admission document Ex. A-l in evidence was not the it of a judicial determination of the question or it could be admitted in evidence or not for of stamp. It is said that the Court did not its mind consciously to the question whether document is admissible or not. Reliance was placed on Attili Venkanna Vs. Parasuram Byas trading under the name of Parasuram Doulatram and Others, ; N.M.S. Sadasivier Krishnier Estate and Others Vs. T.S. Meenakshi Iyer and Others, and Abdul Wahab "v. Anjaneyulu, AIR 1035 Mad 888 (G), for the position that unless the question of the-admissibility, of a document was actually considered by the trial Judge after applying. his mind consciously to the question whether the document was admissible or not, the endorsement thereon of the particulars required by Order 13, Rule 4, does not preclude him from considering the question of the admissibility of the document in evidence at a later stage of the case. To some extent,, the argument involves nice ''(considerations of human, psychology into which a Court is "reluctant to be drawn. This is particularly so where an admission of a defectively stamped document in evidence without the Court being alive to or aware of the provisions of Section 35 of the Stamp Act, is rendered unassailable u/s 36 of the Act In the case of a judicial proceeding which is required to be reduced to writing, the record made by; the Judge is the authentic evidence, of what he intended to do. In applying the provisions of Section 36 of the Stamp Act, the Court should have regard to what has been actually done and not to the unexpressed intentions of the Judge. The Judge might have intended to reject the document, but if in fact he had not rejected it, but admitted it in evidence, it must be acted upon at the subsequent, stages of the litigation.

The decision of Phillips and Wallace, JJ., in Attili Venkanna Vs. Parasuram Byas trading under the name of Parasuram Doulatram and Others, , pointed out that in that case it was not clear whether the Judge or a clerk of the Court placed the rubber stamp containing die initials of the Judge on the document and that it was very doubtful whether the provisions of Order 13, Rule 4, had been complied. with. In these circumstances, the learned Judges held that a document could not be deemed to have been admitted in evidence until the Judge has applied his mind to a consideration of its admissibility. In other words, it was held that the admission of the endorse* ment in that case was a mechanical act. Whether the decision was right or wrong, the facts here are-far more compelling than in that case. N.M.S. Sadasivier Krishnier Estate and Others Vs. T.S. Meenakshi Iyer and Others, was a decision of Curgenven, J. In that case'' the endorsement had; been made by a clerk but had not been signed or initialled by anybody else. The learned Judge observed:

It is difficult to resist the statement of the Court itself that no occasion had arisen for it to look at the document and that it had not in fact considered'' the question of its admissibiUty,'''', The position here is that objection was raised to the admissibility of Ex. A-l & it was proved by P. W. I and marked as Ex. A-l. The endorsements were-initialled by the District Munsif in his own hand. The facts here bear no resemblance to those in the case before Curgenven, J. Vavarthar Abdul Wahab Saheb Vs. Pallapotha Kanaka Anjaneyalu and Others, , is a decision of Pandurang Rao, J, There a hand was given a mark by the Commissioner who neither initialed nor dated it and the procedure prescribed by Order 13, Rule 4, had not been followed. All that was done was to give an identifying" mark to the hand and no more and the identifying mark was given to put beyond doubt the .particular piece of paper which was shown to a witness during his examination by the Commissioner. The learned Judge held that die Commissioner, had no authority .to admit the document in evidence when objection to its admissibility had been, .taken and that the Commissioner did not also purport to admit the document in evidence under the provisions of Order13, Rule 4, Civil Procedure Code. These are the only decisions cited by the Respondent.

In his judgment, the learned District Munsif sought to bring tile case within the decisions cited above by stating that he had not applied his mind to the question of the admissibility of the suit document when it was marked as an exhibit. In the face of the endorsements on Ex. A-l which have been initialed by him and which are regular and in strict compliance with the provisions of Order 13, Rule 4, and in the absence of any order under Order 13, Rule 6, rejecting the document, it is difficult to accept the view of the District Munsif. If the District Munsif bad rejected the document when it was tendered in evidence through P.W. 1 instead of admitting it in evidence, the Plaintiff might have asked for relief on the footing of the original consideration for the promissory note particularly when the Plaintiff was the payee and not an endorsee of the promissory note. The document Ex. A-,1 was admitted in evidence on 4th September 1951, and the learned District Munsif closed the trial on that date and did not make any order rejecting Ex. A-l. He pronounced his judgment on 14th September 1951, dismissing the suit observing that he had not applied his mind to the question of the admissibility of the promissory note that he pronounced the judgment. Even if the District Munsif remained in that uncertain state of mind, it would not affect the legal result of his action in admitting the document in evidence on 4th September 1951.

For these reasons, I reverse the decisions of the Courts below and decree the Plaintiff''s suit with costs throughout