R. Kantha Rao, J.

1. This Civil Revision Petition is filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India against the order dated 01.11.2013 passed in I.A. No. 740/2013 in O.S. No. 1/2010 on the file of the Court of the Principal District Judge, Warangal.

2. I have heard Sri Ch. Purnachandra Rao, learned counsel appearing for the petitioners/defendants and Sri J. Prabhakar, learned counsel appearing for the respondent/plaintiff.

3. The brief facts necessary for disposal of the revision petition may be stated as follows:

"The respondent filed the suit against the petitioners for recovery of an amount of Rs. 1,95,93,471/- pertaining to the works allegedly executed by the petitioners. In the suit the petitioners filed written statement along with a counter claim for Rs. 3,31,59,890/-. A rejoinder was filed by the respondent to the counter claim. In the course of the trial, the petitioners wanted to produce some photocopies of letters said to have been addressed by the 1st petitioner/1st defendant to the office of the respondent on different dates on the ground that the original copies were misplaced and were not traced out, the original letters are in the office of the respondent, they served notice as contemplated under Section 66 of the Evidence Act to the respondent to produce the original letters, but the respondent did not produce the said letters. Therefore, the petitioners filed the petition under section 65(a) of the Evidence Act to permit them to mark the photocopies of the letters as secondary evidence on their behalf. When the petitioners sought to mark the photocopies of the letters, the counsel for the respondent objected for marking of photocopies on the ground that the Xerox copies are not admissible in evidence."

4. According to the petitioners, the documents sought to be marked are letters addressed to the respondent company, the originals of which are with the respondents and the photocopies are maintained by the 1st petitioner as office copies. It is submitted by the petitioners that the respondent also referred and answered these letters in other communications and they are material documents and relevant to prove their case in the suit. Admittedly, the petitioners served a notice in Form-12 on the respondent to produce the original documents for which the respondent replied that the documents shown at Sl. Nos. 2 to 8 were not in its possession and Sl. No. 1 document was already marked as Ex. A12.

5. An additional affidavit has been filed on behalf of the petitioners stating that they had already stated in the written statement about the possession of these documents with the respondent and the original copies of the documents were not traced out in their office and they were lost. Prior to filing of the suit, the petitioners issued notice to the respondent to produce the original letters, but the respondent according to the petitioner, intentionally avoided to produce them. It is further submitted by the petitioners that Ex. A13 and Ex. A21 have already been referred to at Sl. No. 1 and Sl. No. 4 letters, considering their nature, they may be permitted to mark the photocopies of documents as secondary evidence in the course of trial.

6. The respondent opposed the petition on the ground that it had already informed the petitioners that the documents are not in its possession and the petitioners cannot take advantage of the situation, that there is no proper explanation from the petitioners as to what happened to the copies of letters which were maintained in their office in the ordinary course of business.

7. Adverting to the rival contentions, the learned trial Court expressed the view that the documents which relate to the commercial transactions of the petitioners ought to have been maintained by them in regular course, the explanation that they were not traced out and lost is neither sufficient nor convincing, as there was no proper answer from the petitioners as to why the original office copies have been lo