JUDGMENT :

1. Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. Heard finally by the consent of the parties.

2. Initially, the landlord filed R.A.E. & R. Suit No.995/1485 of 2006, seeking the eviction of respondent-tenant. Later, he died. Then, his wife and children (“the owners”) brought themselves on record as the legal representatives. First, the owners applied under Exh.98 seeking the trial Court’s leave to mark a bunch documents as secondary evidence under Section 65(f) of the Indian Evidence Act. The trial Court allowed that application through its order, dated 28th February 2018. That order has not been disturbed.

3. Later, one of the owners, that is the 3rd plaintiff, filed the “affidavit in lieu of examination-in-chief” before the trial Court with a list of documents to be marked. Then, the tenants filed written objections against the marking of certain documents. According to them, they are private documents required to be marked through the authors of those documents. Then, the trial Court through its order, Aggrieved, the owners have filed this writ petition.

4. As it is an objection at an interlocutory stage about marking of the documents, I am not dwelling deep into the factual background. Rather, I will confine my discussion to a singular aspect: Can PW1 get all the documents marked through himself irrespective of their origin or nature?

5. Shri Jeejeeboy, the learned counsel for the petitioners, has submitted that earlier the trial Court through its order, dated 28th February 2018, had ruled on the nature of the documents. It has, in fact, held that the documents the owners secured under the Right to Information Act are public documents. So the tenants should have no objection about their marking. In the alternative, Shri Jeejeeboy has submitted that all the documents except documents 1 and 2 are public documents, and they have been supplied by a competent authority, in terms of Section 74 of the Indian Evidence Act. That accepted, the tenants’ objections pale into insignificance.

6. Shri Jeejeebhoy has taken me through each document that was refused to be marked and explained the circumstances under which the owners secured those documents. Then, he has asserted that the objections that found favour with the trial Court could not stand legal scrutiny.

7. To support his contention Shri Jeejeebhoy has relied on Gulshan Sadruddin Vishram V. Gulshan Allauddin Vishram Writ Petition No.2209 of 2015 an unreported judgment of this Court, rendered by a learned Single Judge on 28th July 2015.

Respondents’:

8. In response, Shri Meheran Irani, the learned counsel for the respondent Nos.3, 6, 8 to 10, has submitted that the petitioners may have secured most documents through RTI Act. It does not mean, according to him, all the documents are public documents. Plainly put, if the documents have not been authored by the person through whom they are sought to be marked, then, even if the documents were secured through RTI, they must be treated only as secondary.

9. Shri Irani, therefore, maintains that the respondents' objections are sustainable. And, by the same reckoning, the trial Court reasoning in its order, dated 5th July 2018, is unexceptional. Shri Irani has emphasised on a couple of documents—especially the certified copies from the Registration Office and the Returns from the Registrar of Companies—to contend that they should not be treated as public documents. On this count, Shri Irani has, first, contended that the owners are not clear whether they have secured the Returns under RTI or directly from ROC. Second, he has submitted that the ROC has long back dispensed with the practice of issuing physical copies of Returns. The prevailing practice, he stresses, is that any person can have access to ROC Web-Portal, through a professional like a Chartered Accountant, and secure the documents by downloading them, of course, by paying the