Madan Lal vs Nanak Chand & Others on 17 October, 2023

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Himachal Pradesh High Court

Madan Lal vs Nanak Chand & Others on 17 October, 2023

Bench: Ajay Mohan Goel

    IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH, SHIMLA

                                                      CMPMO No.568 of 2023
                                                      Decided on: 17.10.2023




                                                                           .

    Madan Lal                                                ....Petitioner/plaintiff.
              Versus





    Nanak Chand & others                               .... Respondents/defendants.

    Coram




                                                 of
    Hon'ble Mr. Justice Ajay Mohan Goel, Judge.
    Whether approved for reporting?1 Yes
    For the petitioner     :    Mr. R.K. Gautam, Senior Advocate,
                                with Mr. Jai Ram Sharma, Advocate.
    For the Respondents     :   None.
                         rt
    Ajay Mohan Goel, Judge (Oral)

By way of this petition filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner assails order dated 02.09.2023, passed by the Court of learned Senior Civil Judge, Court No.1, Amb, Distt. Una, H.P., in CMA No.754VI2023, in Civil Suit No.9612011, titled as Madan Lal vs. Nanak Chand & Ors., in terms whereof an application filed by the petitioner under Order 7, Rule 14 (3) read with Section 151 of the Civil Procedure Code has been dismissed.

2. Having heard learned counsel for the petitioner and having perused the impugned order as well as other documents 1 Whether reporters of the local papers may be allowed to see the judgment?

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appended with the petition, this Court does not finds any infirmity in the impugned order.

3. The suit in issue has been filed by the petitioner, who .

is plaintiff before the learned Trial Court in the year 2011. It could not be demonstrated by learned counsel for the petitioner during the course of his submissions that the documents which were intended to be placed on record by way of application filed under of Order 7, Rule 14 (3) read with Section 151 of the Civil Procedure were not in the knowledge of the petitioner at the time when the rt evidence was led by him.

4. In these circumstances, the contention raised in the application that the documents had become necessary in rebuttal evidence in view of the documents relied upon by the defendants in the course of their evidence is totally unfounded.

5. A perusal of the issues framed in the suit which are quoted in Para2 of the petition demonstrates that out of the five issues framed, the onus to prove issue No.1 is upon the petitioner/plaintiff, whereas the onus to prove other issues is that of the respondents/defendants. However, issues No.2 to 5 are completely unrelatable to the documents which were intended to be placed on record by way of the application filed under Order 7, Rule 14 (3) read with Section 151 of the Civil Procedure. Meaning ::: Downloaded on - 20/10/2023 20:35:12 :::CIS 3 thereby that the contention of the petitioner that the documents were necessary in the course of the rebuttal evidence of the petitioner/ plaintiff, was wrong. In fact the intent of the plaintiff .

was to counter the documents which purportedly were placed on record by the defendants in the course of leading their evidence qua issue No.1.

6. In this background, if one peruses the order passed by of the learned Trial Court, in terms whereof, the application has been dismissed, one finds no fault therein. This Court concurs with the rt findings returned by the learned Trial Court that nothing prevented the petitioner from placing these documents on record in the course of leading his evidence despite reasonable opportunities having been granted as the documents were well within the knowledge of the plaintiff.

7. The provision of under Order 7, Rule 14 of the Civil Procedure cannot be allowed to be used to fill up the lacunae.

Besides this in the course of exercise of its power under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, this Court is not to sit over as an Appellate Court upon the findings returned by the learned Court below, whose order is under challenge and if the view taken by the said Court is plausible on the basis of the facts before it, then this Court need not interfere.

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8. In view of the above discussion, as this Court does not finds any merit in the present petition, the same is dismissed.

Pending miscellaneous applications, if any, stand disposed of.

Interim order, if any, stands vacated.

(Ajay Mohan Goel) Judge October 17, 2023 of (Rishi) rt ::: Downloaded on - 20/10/2023 20:35:12 :::CIS

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Himachal Pradesh High Court