Patna High Court: The Bench of Ashwani Kumar Singh, J. dismissed an application filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, praying for quashing of trial court’s order vide which petitioner’s (defendant before the trial court) application under Order 8 Rule 1A(3) of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 was rejected.
The Court noted that the aforesaid application had been filed praying to mark certified copies of Tirjiya Khatiyan of Khata no. 167 and Khatiyan of Khata No. 5 as exhibits. However, it was dismissed by the trial court on the ground that the documents sought to be exhibited by the petitioner were filed much after the settlement of issues and no permission to admit the same in evidence had been taken.
It was opined that under Order 8 Rule 1A(3) of the CPC, documents which have not been produced by the defendant along with the written statement, cannot be produced to the court later on without leave of the court. Subsequent production of the document can be done only if the court is satisfied with the grounds explained for non-production of the documents at the time of filing of the written statement.
In the instant case, there was no explanation as to why the proposed documents which the petitioners intended to be taken into evidence were not produced earlier. Therefore it was held that there was no illegality in the impugned order. [Dewanti Devi v. Radheshyam Tiwary, 2019 SCC OnLine Pat 28, Order dated 04-01-2019]
