Telangana High Court
Mala Balamma vs M.Raghunath Reddy on 19 February, 2024
THE HONOURABLE SMT. JUSTICE K. SUJANA
CIVIL REVISION PETITION No.3109 OF 2023
ORDER:
This Civil Revision Petition is filed challenging the order of the trial Court in I.A.No.298 of 2023 in O.S.No.67 of 2010.
2. I.A.No.298 of 2023 is filed by the petitioner-plaintiff therein under Order XIII Rule 3 of Code of Civil Procedure seeking the Court to reject and demark Exs.B15 and B46 and make an endorsement on the said documents that the same are fake documents and cannot be considered in evidence and he filed a petition stating that after the evidence of the petitioner was closed in the year, 2012, the respondents/defendants dragged the matter. Defendant No.2 was examined and marked the said documents in the year, 2017. At that time, the tainted simple sale deed was referred for marking and the Court was not inclined to mark the same. Thereafter the respondents hired fake witness to show quantity and not quality. At the stage of arguments also, to fill up the lacunae, as an after-thought, the defendants created fake certified copies without original file 2 SKS, J CRP.3109 of 2023 in the Tahsildar office concerned and got marked simple sale deed as Ex.B46, which is not visible and not readable and also some fake photostat copies of land tax receipts as Ex.B15. To prove that the said documents are fake certified copies, the petitioner made an application before the Tahsildar, Weepangandla Mandal under Right to Information Act on 03.02.2023 to furnish the particulars of file No.B/ROR/9062/98 as to how many papers in the said file are originals and how many papers are photostat copies and also to give description of each paper, whether it is original or photostat copy. The Nayab Tahsildar, Weepangandla Mandal addressed a letter on 08.02.2023 to the Nayab Tahsildar, Pangal Mandal stating that the said file is not available in the office of Weepangandla and requested to give the information by annexing copy of the application. The Nayab Tahsildar, Pangal Mandal addressed a letter on 08.03.2023 to Nayab Tahsildar, Weepangandla Mandal stating that the alleged file is not available in their office. The said information is marked before the trial Court. Thereafter the respondents/defendants filed a petition to call for the original file No.B/ROR/9062/98 from the 3 SKS, J CRP.3109 of 2023 Tahsildar, Weepangandla Mandal and the same was allowed. The authorities submitted the said file and on verification of the said file, it is found that the alleged tainted simple sale deed is not at all original and it is only a photostat copy and it is not visible and readable. The land tax receipts which are marked as Ex.B15, before the trial Court are also found in photostat copies in the above file. The defendants got marked Exs.B46 and B15 in a fraudulent manner. Therefore the said documents are liable to be demarked.
3. The respondents therein filed counter opposing the petition stating that already the documents were marked before this Court and instead of submitting the arguments, the petitioner has filed this application unnecessarily without any valid ground and reason. When the petitioner- plaintiff raised objection in the year, 2017 stating that the simple sale deed was true copy and not a certified copy, they obtained certified copies of the documents which are later marked on their behalf and further denied that they created fake certified copies without original file in the Tahsildar's office concerned and got marked them as 4 SKS, J CRP.3109 of 2023 Exs.B15 to B46. They are ready to read out the averments of the simple sale deed and that the simple sale deed was already regularised to the extent of half share of the land shown in the name of Kyatham Papaiah, Mala Suguru, father of defendant Nos.1 and 2 and Kyatham Papaiah purchased the land shown in the simple sale deed jointly. The mutation proceedings vide file No.B/ROR/9062/98 stand good till this date. It is further stated that they obtained certified copies from the said file for the best reasons known to the petitioner/plaintiff, who is trying his level best to misplace the file from the office and succeeded in getting vague endorsement and reopened the suit and marked the said vague endorsement. If the sale deed is a photostat copy, defendants have legal right and liberty to seek the same to give legal value under Section 65 of the Indian Evidence Act and to treat it as secondary evidence and denied that land tax receipts which were marked as Ex.B15 are photostat copies. The trial Court after hearing both sides allowed the petition demarking Exs.B15 and B46 and against the same the present petition is filed. 5
SKS, J CRP.3109 of 2023
4. Heard Sri N.Ashok Kumar, learned counsel for the petitioners as well as Sri S.S.R.Murthy, learned counsel for the respondents.
5. Learned counsel for the revision petitioners would submit that though the documents are obtained from appropriate authority and the said documents are certified by the Tahsildar, which are marked as Exs.B15 and B46, the trial Court erroneously demarked the same which is not in accordance with law. Under Order XIII Rule 3 CPC, which says that the Court may at any stage of the suit reject any document which it considers irrelevant or otherwise inadmissible, recording the grounds of such rejection and that it is only for the rejection of the documents, but not to demark the documents, as once the document is marked, it cannot be demarked, therefore prayed the Court to set aside the order of the Court.
6. On the other hand the learned counsel for the respondents would submit that as the documents are certified copies of photostat copies, where there is no original document in the file of Tahsildar and as they are not admissible documents and such inadmissible 6 SKS, J CRP.3109 of 2023 documents can be rejected at any stage and he also relied on judgment of this Court in Boggavarapu Narasimhulu V. Sri Sriram Ramanaiah 1 and prayed the Court to dismiss the same.
7. With regard to the submissions and material on record, the documents under Exs.B46 and B15 are the certified copies of a photostat copies. The certified copy of a simple sale deed, dated 20.05.1958 which is marked as Ex.B46 is subject to objection that the contents of the documents are not visible and it is inadmissible for want of registration. Similarly Ex.B15 was subject to objection and such file is created and no file is existing to issue the same. The original file No. B/ROR/9062/98 produced before the trial Court shows that the land revenue receipts Ex.B15 are in photostat copies in the said file. Similarly the simple sale deed, dated 20.05.1958 is also a photostat copy and the contents of the said documents are complexly invisible and faded away and not able to be read. Even Form-16 shows the list of documents annexed as photostat copy of simple sale deed, dated 20.05.1958, as the documents are obtained 1 2013 SCC online AP 328 (2014) 2 ALD 426: (2014) 3 ICC 257: (2014) 1 ALT 577 983 18 7 SKS, J CRP.3109 of 2023 from the Tahsildar office and original file shows that they are the photostat copies. The certified copy of a photostat copy is not admissible in evidence. Therefore, the said documents are demarked from the record.
8. Further Hon'ble Supreme Court in R.V.E. Venkatachala Gounder v. Arulmigu Viswesaraswami and V.P.Temple 2, observed that the objection as to admissibility of the documents may be classified into two classes, i) an objection that the document which is sought to be proved is itself inadmissible in evidence; and ii) where the objection does not dispute the admissibility of the document in evidence but is directed towards the mode of proof alleging the same to be irregular or insufficient.
9. The Apex Court also observed as under:-
"In the first case, merely because a document has been marked as 'an exhibit', an objection as to its admissibility is not excluded and is available to be raised even at a later stage or even in appeal or revision. In the latter case, the objection should be taken before the evidence is tendered and once the document has been admitted in evidence and marked as an exhibit, the objection that it should not have been admitted in evidence or that the mode adopted for proving the document is irregular cannot be allowed to be raised at 2 AIR 2003 SC 4548 8 SKS, J CRP.3109 of 2023 any stage subsequent to the marking of the document as an exhibit."
10. In the present case it falls under first case where the document itself is inadmissible, therefore it can be excluded at any stage of the suit as documents in present case are inadmissible. Admittedly these documents are certified copies of photostat copies, as such, the trial Court rightly demarked the same. There is no illegality in the order of the lower Court and there are no merits in the Civil Revision Petition and the Civil Revision Petition is liable to be dismissed. If really original documents are available in the custody of authorities they can request the Court to summon the authority to prove the same.
11. Accordingly, this Civil Revision Petition is dismissed. There shall be no order as to costs.
12. Pending Miscellaneous Applications, if any, shall stand closed.
______________ K.SUJANA, J Date: 19.02.2024 BV