High Court Pulls Plug on Last-Minute Graphology Report in Bitter Will Battle

In a sharp rebuke to procedural laxity, the High Court of Bombay at Goa has quashed a trial court order that had permitted plaintiffs to spring a graphologist’s report on the defence at the final arguments stage of a decade-old will dispute. Justice Valmiki Menezes ruled that neither due diligence nor relevance had been demonstrated for introducing the expert opinion after both parties had closed their evidence.

A Family Feud Over Ruby’s Last Wishes

The dispute centres on the estate of late Mrs Ruby Patrick Almeida, who died on 1 April 2008. Her sisters Olive and Stella had reportedly maintained strained relations with her. The plaintiffs, claiming as children of Stella, filed Regular Civil Suit No. 15/2009/B alleging that a will dated 27 February 2008 in favour of caretaker Vincent Phliip D’Costa was the product of coercion and executed while Ruby was mentally unfit owing to diabetes.

D’Costa countered that Ruby, out of genuine affection, had voluntarily bequeathed everything to him. After years of evidence recording that concluded only in mid-2023, the plaintiffs suddenly sought to rely on reports of one Milind R. Rajore dated October 2022 and January 2023, claiming the signature analysis proved Ruby lacked mental capacity.

The Civil Judge Junior Division at Bicholim allowed the application with nominal costs. D’Costa approached the High Court under Article 227.

Petitioner: “No Justification, No Expertise”

Advocate Ashwini Agni argued that Order 13 Rule 1 and Order 7 Rule 14 CPC were violated. The application offered no explanation why the reports could not have been obtained during the plaintiffs’ evidence phase in 2010. Ten months elapsed between the first report and the filing of the application, she noted, and graphology’s status as a recognised science was nowhere established.

Respondents: “Expert Help for Soundness of Mind”

Advocate Jatin Ramaiya defended the order, contending that an expert opinion would assist the court on the crucial issue of testamentary capacity. He further submitted that by accepting costs of ₹1,000 the petitioner had waived the right to challenge the order.

Why Receipt of Costs Did Not Bar the Petition

Justice Menezes examined the rozanama endorsements and the petitioner’s subsequent affidavit denying any authorisation for his advocate to receive costs. The court held that unauthorised acceptance by a junior counsel could not preclude a challenge under Article 227 when the order itself suffered from jurisdictional errors.

The Court’s Hard Look at Graphology

The judgment then turned to fundamentals. “Graphology is defined as the study of handwriting to infer personality traits… Its methods and conclusions are not supported by scientific evidence and as such it is considered to be a pseudoscience.” The reports themselves carried disclaimers about photocopies and failed to explain how the discipline qualified as expert testimony under Section 39(1) of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (corresponding to old Section 45 ).

More critically, the application contained no jurisdictional facts showing “good cause” for the delayed production, a requirement the court emphasised must now be applied strictly after the 1999 CPC amendments removed the old Rule 2.

Key Observations

> “Perusal of the application in this case does not state any reasons or justification for such delay.”

> “In the absence of concluding that the reports would be relevant… the trial Court could not have granted the application.”

> “Uncorooborated evidence of a handwriting expert is an extremely weak type of evidence and the same should not be relied upon either for the conviction or for acquittal.”

Final Order and Future Implications

The writ petition was allowed. The impugned order dated 17 February 2024 was quashed and set aside. Rule was made absolute.

The ruling sends a clear signal to civil courts across Goa and Maharashtra: applications to introduce expert reports after closure of evidence must demonstrate both strict compliance with the amended CPC and genuine scientific reliability of the proposed evidence. Last-minute attempts to fill evidentiary gaps, especially with disciplines lacking judicial acceptance, will face short shrift.