High Court of Punjab And Ha D Haryana
Case Details
Page 1 of 6 6 (cid:1) IN THE HI E HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HA D HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH 133 Buta Singh Ram Pal CR-119-2025 (O&M) Date of decision: 13.01.2025 Vs. ...Petitioner(s) ...Respondent(s) CORAM: HON’BLE MS. JUSTICE NID NIDHI GUPTA Present:- cate Mr.Deepak Arora, Advocate for the petitioner. NIDHI GUPTA, PTA, J. *** Present petition under Art r Article 227 of the Constitution of India is file filed by the defendant for setting tting aside the impugned order dated 11.11.2 11.2024 (Annexure P6) passed by th y the learned Civil Judge (Senior Division), Ku Kurukshetra, vide which he application the filed by the respondent/pl
Legal Reasoning
t/plaintiff seeking permission to l to lead secondary evidence of two agreeme ments to sell viz. Agreement to to Sell dated 26.02.2016 and Agreement to t to Sell dated 22.08.2016, was allow allowed. 2. Brief facts of the case as se as set out in the plaint (Annexure P-1), are that hat on 01.11.2017 the respondent/ ent/plaintiff had filed a Civil Suit No.1227/2017 017for recovery of Rs.84,70,000/- Rs.8 from the petitioner/def /defendant with regard to the paym ayments made by the plaintiff in pursuance to to the aforesaid Agreement to S Sell dated 26.2.2016executed between the the parties in respect of suit la t land measuring 55 kanal 12 marla.The said said land was bought by the plain plaintiff along with one Paramjit Kaur. At the t he time of execution of Agreemen ent to Sale dated 26.2.2016, a SUNENA 2025.01.22 10:55 I attest to the accuracy and integrity of this document (cid:1) sum of ₹20 la 0 lakhs was handed over by the pla e plaintiff to the defendant. Said Page 2 of 6 6 (cid:1) Paramjit Kaur aur had contributed towards the s he said payment. Thereafter on 22.8.2016, th , the plaintiff had paid another her sum of ₹50 lakhs to the defendant. Sa t. Said Paramjit Kaur had contribut ibuted towards this payment as well. In ackno knowledgement of the payment, th t, the defendant had executed a writing/ Rece eceipt dated 22.8.2016 itself, whi which was duly witnessed and attested by th y the Notary Public Kurukshetra, w ra, who entered the same in his register at Ser Serial no. 1934 dated 22.8.2016. It It was further pleaded that on 24.8.2016, the , the defendant had gone to the hou house of Paramjit Kaur and had asked her to r to handover the original agree greement to them.Accordingly, Paramjit Kaur aur had handed over the original ag al agreement dated 26.2.2016 to the defendant dant.It was further mentioned in th in the plaint that on 02.10.2016, the plaintiff tiff had handed over the origina ginal agreement receipt dated 22.08.2016 to 6 to the defendant as he had dema emanded the same. It is further mentioned th d that the defendant had adm admitted receiving a sum of ₹70,00,000 as 0 as part of the sale consideratio ration from the plaintiff.It was alleged that at however, the petitioner had re d rescinded from the aforesaid agreements a ts and undertook to return the am e amount of Rs.70 lakh to the plaintiff. 3. Upon notice, the defenda endant had appeared and filed written statem atement (Annexure P2) contesting ing the suit and denying therein that the said a aid agreements to sell had been han handed over to him. It is in this background t d that the plaintiff filed the pre present application dated ‘Nil’ SUNENA 2025.01.22 10:55 I attest to the accuracy and integrity of this document (cid:1) Page 3 of 6 6 (cid:1) (Annexure P4) P4) for permission to lead seconda ndary evidence in respect of the abovesaid agr agreement to sell date 26.2.201 .2016, and the writing/Receipt dated 22.8.20 8.2016, which has been allowed vid d vide the impugned order. The defendant file t filed reply dated 11.3.2022 (A (Annexure P-5), to the said application. 4. Learned counsel for the p e petitioner/defendant submits that in the re reply (Annexure P5), it has been een categorically denied by the defendant th that the Agreement to Sell Sell dated 26.2.2016 or the writing/receip ceipt dated 22.08.2016 were ever ver handed over to him by the plaintiff. In hi n his reply, the defendant has also also objected that although the plaintiff had p ad pleaded in his application that t hat the agreement was lost, but no criminal c al complaint in this regard had had been made to the police regarding the the loss of agreement dated 26.2.20 .2.2016. It was stated that in the absence of an f any police complaint, the allegati gation of the plaintiff of loss of agreement, ca cannot be believed and taken in n into consideration. It was also mentioned th d that a criminal complaint had b d been filed by the defendant against the pla e plaintiff under Sections 420, 467, 467, 468 and 120-B IPC in which the plaintiff ha iff has been summoned vide order der dated 16.09.2021 (Annexure P7). 5. Learned counsel for the the defendant further submits thatin passing ssing the impugned order, the le e learned trial Court failed to appreciate tha that case of the plaintiff with resp respect to the Agreement dated 26.02.2016 did 6 did not fall under Section 65(a) o (a) of Indian Evidence Act, 1872, SUNENA 2025.01.22 10:55 I attest to the accuracy and integrity of this document (cid:1) as he failed to d to prove that “the original is sho s shown or appears to be in the possession or p or power of the person against wh st whom the document is sought to be proved, ved, or of any person out of reach reach of, or not subject to, the Page 4 of 6 6 (cid:1) process of the the Court, or of any person legally b lly bound to produce it.”. 6.
Legal Reasoning
Learned counsel reiterates ates that the plaintiff has sought to lead secon condary evidence in respect of the f the Agreements in question as the same are are stated to have been misplaced ced by him. However, no FIR or police compla plaint has been lodged by the p he plaintiff in this regard. It is contended tha that in such a situation, he could uld not have been permitted to lead secondar ndary evidence. In support of this his contention, learned counsel relies upon jud n judgment of the Rajasthan High Co h Court in “Ram Singh & Others Vs. Anguri” 2 ri” 2022(1) Civil Court Cases 602 02 (Rajasthan), wherein it has been held as as under: - “Evidence Act, 1872, Ss.65, 66 , 66 - Secondary evidence - Photocopy of document - Pre-con conditions as laid down u/s 66 of Evidence Act not satisfied by d by petitioners - Neither any admission was made by petitio titioners for procuring original document nor any FIR or any doc document to show that original has been misplaced - Mere ba e bald statement by petitioner would not be sufficient for accep ccepting a photocopy of original document as a secondary piece piece of evidence - Application rightly rejected.” 7. 8. No other argument is raise aised on behalf of the petitioner. I have heard learned cou counsel for the petitioner and perused the ca e case file in great detail. SUNENA 2025.01.22 10:55 I attest to the accuracy and integrity of this document (cid:1) 9. It has been argued on beh behalf of the petitioner that as Page 5 of 6 6 (cid:1) per the plainti aintiff the Agreements in question ion have been lost/misplaced by him; and that hat the said assertion is liable to be o be rejected being unbelievable, as no police c ce complaint has been registered b ed by the plaintiff regarding the lost agreemen ments.However, the said contentio ntion of the petitioner is totally contrary to th o the record, as a bare reading o g of the application (Annexure P4)filed by th y the plaintiff seeking permission ion to lead secondary evidence shows that no t no such averment has been mad made therein by the plaintiff. It has been the the consistent case of the plaint laintiff that the agreements in question are are in the possession of the defen efendant. It has nowhere been stated by the the plaintiff that the said agreeme ements are lost. As such, there was no requirement on part of req the plaintiff the to register an FIR/complaint laint.For this reason, the petitioner ner can derive no benefit from the relied upo upon judgement as the same is no s not applicable to the facts and circumstances nces of the present case. It would al also therefore appear that the petitioner is d is deliberately trying to obfuscate scate the issue. In this regard, relevant find ndings of the learned Court below a ow are as under: - “6. Defendant, denied the posse ossession of both documents in written statement. As per defe defendant, there is no report reported to the police regarding t ing the loss of above mentioned documents and in the absence of ce of any police report, it cannot be said that both documents are re lost and due to that reason permission to lead secondary evid evidence cannot be given. 7. As regard the existence of b of both documents, defendants admitted in his written statemen ment. As regard the loss of both SUNENA 2025.01.22 10:55 I attest to the accuracy and integrity of this document (cid:1) Page 6 of 6 6 (cid:1) documents, it is the stand of pla f plaintiff that both documents are in possession of defendant dant, however, denied by the defendant. In these circumstances ances, when plaintiff alleged that both documents are not lost and lost is in possession of defendant, which is denied by d by defendant then there is no need to report the matter to po to police regarding loss of both documents. 8. In these circumstances, the ex he existence of both documents and plaintiff is not in possession ssion of both documents stands established and there is no other way to prove both documents except by way of sec f secondary evidence. This court also perused the authorities relie relied upon by learned counsel for defendant and law discussed fo ssed in those authorities is not disputed, but with due regard to rd to those authorities, they are not applicable of the facts of the p the present case.” 10. 11.
Decision
In view of the above, prese resent petition is dismissed. Pending application(s) if an if any also stand(s) disposed of. 13.01.2025 Sunena (Nidhi Gupta) Judge Whether spea Whether repo peaking/reasoned: eportable: Yes/No Yes/No SUNENA 2025.01.22 10:55 I attest to the accuracy and integrity of this document (cid:1)