JUDGMENT :

DAMA SESHADRI NAIDU, J.

1. The petitioner in both the Writ petitions claims to be the landlord having succeeded its predecessor-in-interest. That predecessor inducted the first respondent into the property as a lessee. The petitioner, as the lessor, filed R.A.E. Suit No. 467/767 of 2005 for eviction. Its principle plea is that it bona fide needs the property. Issues framed, the trial began. Then the lessor filed Exhibit-A witness summons, requiring the Senior Police Inspector, L.T. Marg Police Station, Mumbai, to produce eight documents. Through an order, dated 18.03.2016, the Trial Court allowed the lessor's application. Then, that order has led to two Writ petitions.

2. The lessees filed WP No. 4833 of 2016 and 4842 of 2016, assailing the trial Court's order. Eventually, they withdrew both the writ petitions. It was without prejudice to their right to question, during the trial, the relevance of those documents. Then, the police officer concerned produced all the documents except document no. 7. That is the Chief Police Prosecutor's opinion, dated 29.03.2005. But it emerged from the police officer's reply that the 7th document lies with another police authority.

3. In that context, the lessor filed another witness summons; the lessees, however, opposed it. Eventually, the Trial Court, through its order dated 16.01.2018, rejected the lessor's claim to have the document summoned from another police station. Aggrieved, the lessor has filed Writ Petition No. 5016 of 2018.

4. Besides that, when the lessor wanted to mark the documents the police officer already produced, the lessees objected to it. The Trial Court sustained that objection, through its order, dated 18.10.2016. Despite that rejection, the lessor filed a praecipe requiring the trial Court to reconsider its earlier decision. Even that praceipe met the same fate: dismissal. Thus aggrieved, the lessor filed WP No. 5017 of 2018.

Arguments in WP No. 5016 of 2018:

Petitioners:

5. In the above factual background, Ms. Sakshi Bhalla, the learned counsel for the lessor, has submitted that the trial Court, in the order assailed in Writ Petition No. 5016 of 2018, has presumed the irrelevance of the document sought to be summoned and then concluded that it need not be summoned. According to her, the trial Court has contradicted itself. To elaborate, she has submitted that initially the trial Court itself has allowed the lessor's plea to have all the documents summoned. When one document could not be produced, the parties realized that it was in the custody of some other police station. So the lessor filed another application to have that document summoned. Even though the lessees had not objected to the supposed irrelevance of that document, the trial Court, in fact, traveled beyond the pleadings and held that it was irrelevant.

6. In that context, Ms. Sakshi Bhalla has contended that consistency is a judicial virtue. The Trial Court ought not to have taken, according to her, contradictory stands on the same issue; that is, the production of a particular document. She has further submitted that it is for the party to rely on the document and to prove it ultimately. Neither the court nor the adversary, she has continued, could insist on the suitor's revealing how he is going to use that document in the trial. Thus, she urges this Court to allow the Writ Petition No. 5016 of 2018. To buttress her contentions, she has relied on Bipin Shantilal Panchal vs. State of Gujarat.

Respondents:

7. Per contra, Dr. Birendra Saraf, the learned counsel for the respondents, has submitted that the trial Court has ample powers to decide whether a document is relevant before it allows a party to summon that document. Otherwise, the trial will drag on endlessly. So, even if the Court wanted to accept the lessor's entire plea about the document, in the end it is only an opinion the lessor wanted to rely on. According to Dr. Saraf, an opinion can be no piece of evidence-more particularly if it is sough