Patna High Court: The Bench of Prabhat Kumar Jha, J. dismissed a petition filed against an order allowing production of additional documents.
Petitioner herein filed an eviction suit against one Rajendra Mistri, which was decreed in his favour. Respondents herein (who are widow and sons of Rajendra Mistri) filed an appeal against the said decree along with an application under Order 41 Rule 27 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 for bringing additional documents on record. The said application was allowed by the learned District Judge. Aggrieved thereby, the instant petition was filed.
The Court noted that respondents were not aware of the pendency of the eviction suit filed by the petitioner. Rajendra Mistri, who was contesting the suit, became traceless in the middle of hearing, and the suit was decided without allowing the defendant to produce any documentary evidence as the fact of him being traceless could not be brought to the knowledge of the court. When the suit was decreed, his legal heirs got knowledge about this fact and filed an appeal along with a petition stating that they had no knowledge about the pendency of the suit. They also filed an application for adducing additional documents which had a bearing on merits of the case. On consideration of these facts, the learned District Judge allowed their petition for adducing additional evidence
Order 41 Rule 27(1)(b) of CPC clearly envisages that party seeking to produce additional evidence, must establish that notwithstanding the exercise of due diligence, such evidence was not within his knowledge or could not, after the exercise of due diligence, be produced by him at the time when the decree appealed against was passed. It was held that respondents’ case clearly fell within the purview of said provision and thus there was no infirmity in the impugned order.[Vijay Kumar Singh v. Soni Kuer, 2018 SCC OnLine Pat 2292, Order dated 06-12-2018]
