A court may dismiss an application for comparison of signature if there is a gap of three years between the disputed signature and admitted signatures.

JUDGMENT

Battu Devanand, J. - This Civil Revision Petition is directed against the order, dated 18.11.2019, passed in I.A.No.1227 of 2019 in O.S.No.97 of 2015, on the file of the Court of Senior Civil Judge, Ramachandrapuram.

2. Heard Sri S. Yogesh, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri T. Rajasekhar Rao, learned counsel for the respondent.

3. The facts of the case are that a suit in O.S.No.97 of 2015 was filed by the respondent herein against the petitioner for recovery of money based on a promissory note. The petitioner filed his written statement in the suit and contended that the promissory note alleged to be executed by him is forged and fabricated. The petitioner filed an application in I.A.No.1227 of 2019 in O.S.No.97 of 2015 to send the suit promissory note to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Hyderabad for comparison of signature along with admitted signatures of the petitioner over Vakalat and Written statement.

4. The Court below dismissed the said application holding that as the disputed signature in Ex.A.1/suit promissory note is dated 15.01.2012 and the signatures on Vakalat and written statement are not contemporaneous signatures and there is nearly three years gap between the disputed signature and admitted signatures. The Court below further held that in the absence of any contemporaneous signatures and admitted signatures, the petitioner is not entitled for the relief as prayed for. Aggrieved by the order of the Court below, dated 18.11.2019 in I.A.No.1227 of 2019, the present Civil Revision Petition is filed.

5. The learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the Court below committed error in dismissing the application filed under Section 45 of Indian Evidence Act. The Court below dismissed the application mechanically without perusing the material available on record.

6. On the other hand, the learned counsel for the respondent contends that except taking a plea in his written statement that the suit promissory note is a forged document and the petitioner kept quite all these days without taking any steps and now at the fag end to delay the proceedings, the present petition is filed.

7. The learned counsel for the petitioner placed reliance on the Full Bench decision of this Court in Bande Siva Shankara Srinivasa Prasad v. Ravi Surya Prakash Babu and others, (2016) AIR Hyderabad 118.

8. The learned counsel for the respondent placed reliance of judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in Chennadi Jalapathi Reddy v. Baddam Pratapa Reddy (dead) through Legal Representatives and another, 2019 14 SCC and the judgment of this High Court in P. Padmanabhaiah v. G. Srinivasa Rao, (2017) 1 ALT 710 =2017(2) ALD 368.

9. On perusal of the impugned order under this revision and also the material available on record, it appears that the disputed signature in Ex.A.1/suit promissory note is dated 15.01.2012 and the suit was filed in the year 2015. The present revision petition is filed in the year 2019 to send the suit promissory note for comparison of signature with admitted signatures of the petitioner over Vakalat and Written Statement. Admittedly, there is a gap of three years between both of them. As such, the proposition of law laid down by this Court in Bande Siva Shankara Srinivasa Prasad's case (1 supra) relied by the learned counsel for the petitioner is not useful to support his contention basing on the facts and circumstances of the present case.

10. In the judgment relied by the learned counsel for the respondent in Chennadi Jalapathi Reddy's case (2nd supra), the Hon'ble Apex Court at para No.24, it was held as under:

"There is another reason why we are not inclined to place reliance on the opinion of the expert DW2. From a perusal of his report Ext. B2, it is evident that barring the signature on a written statement in a prior suit, all other admitted signatures of the first defendant are of a period subsequent to the filing of the plaint (i.e. on the vakalatnama and the written statemen