This Civil Revision Petition, under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, is filed by the petitioner-unsuccessful first defendant, assailing the order, dated 07.05.2018, of the learned Junior Civil Judge, Parchur, passed in I.A.No.157 of 2018 in O.S.No.62 of 2011, whereby the learned Junior Civil Judge allowed the aforestated Interlocutory Application filed by the first respondent herein/plaintiff for sending the document with the disputed signatures, namely, suit contract of sale, dated 28.08.2003, along with the vakalat & written statement of the first defendant and also the registered sale deed, dated 16.09.2011, containing his signatures to a handwriting expert of A.P. Forensic Science Laboratory, Amaravathi, for comparing the disputed signatures on the said contract of sale with the signatures said to be admitted on the aforestated documents and for furnishing an opinion along with a report to the Court.

2. I have heard the submissions of the learned counsel appearing for the revision petitioner/first defendant (‘first defendant’ for short). I have perused the material record.

3. The introductory facts, in brief, are as follows:

The plaintiff brought the suit for specific performance of the aforestated contract of sale, dated 28.08.2003. The first defendant, having entered appearance, filed his written statement disputing his signature/s on the said contract of sale. After trial, the plaintiff filed the aforestated Interlocutory Application and the same was resisted by the first defendant. However, the trial Court, by the impugned order, allowed the said application and directed to send the disputed contract of sale, dated 28.08.2003, to the handwriting expert, F.S.L., Amaravathi, for comparison of the admitted and disputed signatures of the first defendant and called for his report along with his opinion. Aggrieved thereof, the first defendant is before this Court.

4. The first defendant, in the grounds, and the learned Counsel, during his submissions, raised two contentions. Firstly, it is urged that the approach of the plaintiff is a laidback approach, as his present request made at the conclusion of the trial to send the documents to the handwriting expert for his opinion is highly belated, and therefore, the trial Court was in error in granting the said request. Secondly, it is sought to be contended that the contract of sale is of the year 2003 and that, the suit was instituted in the year 2011; that the signatures of the first defendant on the vakalat & the written statement and also on the deed of sale are of the year 2011, and therefore, the said signatures of the first defendant, which the plaintiff wants the expert to consider as standard signatures for comparison with the disputed signature/s, are not of contemporaneous period; therefore, the trial Court ought not to have considered the request of the plaintiff.

5. Dealing with the contentions, it is to be noted that the learned counsel for the petitioner placed reliance on the following decisions of this Court. The decision in Dhatla Lakshmipathi Raju v. P.Venkata Ramana, 2017 (3) HLT 594, is relied upon in support of the proposition that a belated application filed for sending the documents to an expert for an opinion is not entertainable. The decision of this Court in P.Padmanabhaiah v. G.Srinivasa Rao, 2017 (1) HLT 715 is relied upon in support of the proposition that, when the signatures, which are to be compared with the disputed signatures, are not of a contemporaneous period, the request for obtaining an opinion from the expert based on such signatures shall not be considered.

6. I have gone through the decisions cited. I have given earnest consideration to the submissions.

7. In the considered view of this Court, the two contentions and the issue raised in the revision do no merit consideration, as the issue involved is no longer res integra, in view of the decision of the Full Bench of this Court in Bande Siva Shankara Srinivasa Prasad v. Ravi Sur