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2001 Supreme(AP) 1420

Andhra Pradesh High Court
Judges : R.RAMANUJAM
G.Narayanappa - Appellant
Versus
Ganne Lakshmamma - Respondent
CRP.No.3201/2001
Decided On : 11-15-01
Advocates Appeared :
Mr.S.Srinivas Bhatt,Mr.C.Hanumantha Rayadu & Sri M.R.Srinivas,

Headnote:EVIDENCE ACT, Secs.45 & 73 - In suit for partition plaintiff filing petition to send Will to hand writing expert for comparing signatures therein with signatures in letters written by her deceased son - Trial court allowed petition - Contention that Will cannot be sent to hand writing expert for comparison with signatures in letters since they are not proved or admitted - U/s.73 disputed signatures of person can only be compared with another admitted or proved signatures of that person - Comparison of disputed signature or hand writing either by Court u/S.73 or by an Expert u/S.45 can only be made with another admitted or proved signature or writing of that person - In order to ascertain genuineness of a disputed signature of a person in a particular document, Court can only compare it with another proved or admitted signature of that person or may send disputed signature to an expert for comparison with a proved or admitted signature - In this case signature of plaintiff’s son in letters neither proved nor admitted - Impugned order of trial court, set aside - CRP allowed - Matter remitted back to trial court to first record finding on genuineness of letters.

( 1 ) THIS revision Petition is against the order of the Principal Senior Civil Judge, anantapur, allowing I. A. No. 179 of 2001 in o. S. No. 77 of 1990.

( 2 ) THE petitioner herein is the second defendant in the said suit. The 1st respondent herein is the plaintiff therein. She is no other than the mother of the petitioner 2nd defendant. She filed the said suit against her husband (1st defendant in the said suit - who is no more) sons and daughters (defendants 3 to 9), respondents 3 to 9 herein, and grand-son (10th defendant), 10th respondent herein, for partition of the suit schedule property. The suit schedule property originally belonged to her deceased third son - Sri G. Raghu ramudu. She filed the said suit for partition of that property claiming a share along with the other defendants. In that suit, the defence taken by the defendants is that late Sri Raghu Ramudu executed an unregistered will - Ex. B. 3 - bequeathing the property to the late husband of the plaintiff (D. 1 in the said suit) and giving life estate to the 10th defendant. The plaintiff disputed that claim.

( 3 ) THE trial in the said suit had commenced and the evidence on both sides was closed. The plaintiff then filed the said la. under Section 151 C. P. C. , red with section 45 of the Indian Evidence Act (for short "the Act") requesting the trial Court to send Ex. B. 3- will to an hand writing expert for comparing the signature therein with the signatures in Exs. A-1 to A-10 letters, which according to the plaintiff, were written by her deceased son-Raghu ramudu to her another son-Rama Subbiah (D. 4 in the suit), who was examined on behalf of the plaintiff as P. W. 3.

( 4 ) THE petitioner-D. 2, however, disputed the genuineness of Exs. A-1 to A-10 letters and contested the said I. A. , by filing a counter. The main objection put forward by the petitioner- D. 2 is that Ex. B-3 will cannot be sent to an hand writing expert for comparison of the signature therein with the signatures in Exs. A-1 to A-10 letters since they are not proved/admitted documents containing the signatures of late raghu Ramudu.

( 5 ) CONSIDERING the rival contentions, the trial Court came to the following conclusion and allowed the said I. A :"therefore, comparison of the disputed signature with another set of disputed signatures do not serve any purpose except to satisfy the parties. When the Court made enquiries with the Counsel about the availability of any of the admitted signatures, both of them have represented that there are no admitted signatures of raghuramudu on any of the documents. Normally in such a case there is no need to refer the document ex. B-3 for comparison but however the request of the learned Counsel for the petitioner/plaintiff is that in case the Court believe the documents under Ex. A-1 to A-10 as genuine then the observation of the hand writing expert about his opinion over the sugnature available on Ex. B-3 will guide the Court for coming to just conclusion and therefore the point held accordingly in favour of the petitioner"it is this order that is now challenged in this revision Petition.

( 6 ) SRI. S. Srinivas Bhatt, learned Counsel for the petitioner D. 2 contends that under section 73 of the Act the disputed signature of a person in a document can only be compared with another admitted or proved signature of that person, and only when such a proved or admitted signature is available on record, the disputed signature can be sent to an hand writing expert for comparison under Section 45 of the Act. He further submits that since in this case, no such proved or admitted documents are on record, the trial Court erred in allowing the said Interlocutory Application.

( 7 ) THE aforesaid contention is disputed by the learned Counsel for the 1st respondent-plaintiff, Sri C. Hanumantha rayadu. He submits that the trial Court has already recorded the evidence of P. W. 3, who spoke about the genuiness of Exs. A-1 to A-10 letters and that, therefore, the trial cou






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