Sajana Granites and others vs Sai Enterprises

Heard the learned Counsel for the parties. Both the revisions are being disposed of by a common order.

Two applications have been filed before the Trial Court being I.A. No.639 of 1998 and I.A. No.640 of 1998 in OS No.158 of 1992. The application 1A No.639 of 1998 was made seeking direction of the Court for issuance of Summons to Sri K. V. Narsaiah Junior Assistant in M.R.O. Office to mark the statements of T. Vydehi and A. Malathi. This application was opposed by the other side who were the plaintiffs in the suit. They moved an application being IA No.640 of 1998 in which they stated that the Court should not receive the statements of T. Vydehi and A. Malathi. The case which appears to have given rise to this controversy is that the defendant No.2 respondent herein sought to get the statements of four persons on record of the suit which according to him had been made earlier before the Mandal Revenue Officer. One of the statement which is sought to be marked is of T. Vydehi who is the vendor of the plaintiffs in the suit, who according to the rcspondent-Defendant-2, in a proceeding before the Mandal Revenue Officer, when some No objection certificate had to be taken, had stated that she had no interest in the property of which she became a vendor in favour of the plaintiffs in the suit. There were four such statements. During the proceedings in the suit, when certain applications were considered, alt these four statements were marked as Exhibits and the Defendant-2/respondent herein sought to prove them by getting the Mandal Revenue Officer as a witness and in fact the Mandal Revenue Officer appeared as a witness. The statements had been called from the M.R.O''s office. When the M.R.O. came as a witness she deposed that she had recorded the statements of Telekepalli Subrahmanyam and Guda Venkata Subrahmanyam and those statements were marked as Exs.B53 and B54. She further stated that the statements made by Malathi and Vydehi were recorded by the then Village Assistant Sri K. V. Narsaiah. Because of this revelation by the M.R.O. the party sought that Sri K. V. Narsaiah be brought as a witness and the Court found favour with the request and ordered that Sri K. V. Narsaiah be summoned as a witness which is opposed by the other party. This is the net controversy between the parties.

This matter was argued in great detail before this Court. Number of judgments were produced. It was argued, whether this evidence sought to be brought on record was evidence under Sections 18, 33 or 74 of the Indian Evidence Act. It was also argued, whether the document which is sought to be proved before the Court below was a document admissible in evidence or not.

I have given my due consideration to the arguments made at the Bar and also to the judgments which have been cited. Admittedly, the document which is sought to be proved before the Trial Court is not a document which would come u/s -33 of the Evidence Act. In my view, it is also not a document which would fall as an admission u/s 18 of the Act. I am coming to this conclusion on the simple reason that, the conditions which are required to be fulfilled u/s 33 of the Act are not fulfilled in this case. Section 33 contemplates that the evidence should have been given in a judicial proceedings or before any person authorised by law to take it and such statements can be made relevant by Section 33 when the witness is dead or cannot be found or is incapable of giving evidence or is kept out of the way by the adverse party. These conditions admittedly are not fulfilled in the present case. It is an admitted fact that the original persons who gave the statements are alive, these statements were not made admittedly in a judicial proceedings, they were made before the village Assistant about whom the learned Counsel for the petitioners submits that, he had no authority in law to record the statements. In this regard he relics on the provisions of the A.P. Revenue Summonses Act, 1869. Therefore, this should not be a statement u/s 33. Section 18 also in my view is not applicable because it makes certain admissions relevant which are made by a party to the proceedings or by an agent to any such party. In the present case, the person whose statement is sought to be brought on record is neither a party in the proceedings before the Trial Court nor she could be termed as an agent to any of the party to the proceedings although she has been a vendor. The only provision in the Evidence Act is Section 74 which is relevant for the purpose of this controversy. A bare reading of this Section would mean that, all those documents are public documents Which arc (i) of sovereign authority, (ii) of official bodies and tribunals, and (iii) of public officers, legislative, judicial and executive. Even the documents which are public records kept in any state of private documents are the public documents. Therefore, I am of the view that the document which is sought to be proved before the Court below is a public document within the meaning of Section 74 of the Evidence Act. The learned Counsel for the petitioners submits that it is a document of Public Officer within the meaning of Section 74 but such Public Officer had no right to record the evidence in accordance with the A.P. Revenue Summonses Act, 1869 as has been referred above. That may, or may not be correct, but the question would be, even if a Public Officer takes a statement for which he is not empowered to do, whether it can be a Public document or not. In my view, since this is a Public Officer''s document whether taken duly or not, it can be a document within the meaning of Section 74 of the Evidence Act. In this case, an example would suffice the matter. Suppose a Court takes statement of witness in a matter which was pending before the Court, but subsequently it was found that the Court had no jurisdiction to try the matter, that would not alter the character of the statement made before such Judicial Officer. The admissibility of a document into evidence is one thing and relevancy of such evidence is altogether a different thing. The Trial Court also has taken into consideration this aspect of the matter.

There is another angle of this controversy, that these documents have already been brought on record. The M.R.O. has been produced, the documents have been shown to her. She only stated that, these documents are not in her hand writing but in the hand writing of Village Assistant. No objection has been taken to other two documents which have been exhibited by the M.R.O. about whom she has made a statement that she had scribed them. Therefore, it is too late in the day for the present petitioners to contest the order of the learned Trial Court.

For these reasons, I do not find any merit in these revisions which are liable to be dismissed. However, it is made clear that the relevancy and evidentiary value of the documents which are sought to be proved before the Court below shall be decided by the Court below at the final hearing of the matter.

It was further argued before me that since those persons who are alleged to have made the statements before the Village Assistant are alive, they should have been brought as witnesses. If those persons are not examined by either of the parties during the Trial it shall be open for the Trial Court to consider this aspect of the matter and draw its own conclusions at the final stage,

With these observations these two revision petitions are dismissed.