Document Fragment View
Fragment Information
Showing contexts for: ddlr in Sri. B. Puttaswamy vs Sri. M.P. Lokesh on 8 September, 2022Matching Fragments
3. In the said final decree proceedings, the jurisdictional Deputy Director of Land Records [DDLR] is appointed as a Court Commissioner and he has filed his report. In the present suit, at the petitioner's instance, the jurisdictional Assistant Director of Land Records [ADLR] is appointed as the Court Commissioner. This authority has filed his report and is also cross examined. These two reports relate to the suit schedule properties.
4. The petitioner's case is that during the pendency of the earlier suit for partition, the respondents have encroached upon the Schedule-B property and while the DDLR's report demonstrates encroachment, the recent ADLR's report is contrary to the DDLR's report. The petitioner must therefore have an opportunity to examine the DDLR to substantiate his case that the respondents have encroached the Schedule-B property. The leave to produce the DDLR's report without leave to examine the said Officer would not enable the entire evidence being brought on record to enable complete adjudication.
5. While Sri. Manjunath Hegde, the learned counsel for the petitioner, argues in support of the petition reiterating the petition assertions, Sri. Vishnu Hegde, the learned counsel for the first respondent, submits that the DDLR's report would not be of any probative value insofar as the present controversy because none of the respondents are admittedly parties to the proceedings in which such report is filed. He argues that the civil Court has rightly rejected the application for leave to examine the DDLR, and if the petitioner proposes to mark the DDLR's report as an exhibit, he can make necessary application to have the same marked through him [the petitioner] as an exhibit.
6. This Court, on a careful consideration of the circumstances of the case, must opine that there is considerable force in Sri. Manjunath Hegde's submissions that every material that could be relevant for the purpose of final adjudication of the controversy must be permitted to be brought on record. If the two Officers from the concerned Survey department have filed reports that could be contradictory in terms, and if one of the reports is already on record [with the author of the report being cross-examined] and the other report is also permitted to be produced, the author of other report must also be examined. This would ensure that even if there is a comparison of the two reports for final adjudication, it is in the background of all the circumstances that the parties could rely upon. The civil Court has failed to consider the petitioner's applications for summoning the DDLR and for re- opening the case [I.A. Nos.14 and 15] from this perspective and therefore, this Court must intervene to enable complete adjudication. Hence, the following:
ORDER [a] The petition is allowed, and the impugned order dated 14.12.2016 insofar as the rejection of I.A. Nos.14 and 15 on the file of the I Additional Civil Judge and JMFC, Malavalli, is quashed.8
[b] The petitioner's applications in I.A. Nos.14 and 15 are allowed permitting the petitioner to examine the concerned DDLR.