( 1 ) ISSUING commissions for recording the statements of witnesses is not unusual in civil eases. It is being dune ever since the Code of Civil Procedure was enforced more than a hundred years ago. Whenever a case fur such examination is made out, parties arc allowed to examine their witnesses on commission. In the case before us the defendant asked for permission to examine his witnesses on commission. The permission was given. Now he refuses to examine them and contends that he will examine them on commission only after the plaintiff has examined his witnesses and closed his case. He claims it as his right. He declines to examine them before the case is set down for hearing. If he is right then there is an end of the conception of a continuous trial. Let us, therefore, examine the Code of Civil Procedure and find out its intention.

( 2 ) THE rules of pleading and other ancillary rules contained in the Code of Civil Procedure have one main object in view. It is to Iind out and narrow down the controversy between the parties. Co achieve it various provisions have been made in the Code. Each party is required to place all the material facts before the Court. Gone are the days of hide-and-seek and a party is no more allowed to take the opposite party by surprise. The Court has been empowered under Order X to examine any party at the first hearing of the suit. or at any subsequent hearing, about any material questions relating to the suit. Needless to say, this examination forms a part of the record of the case. No party can object to the questions asked by the Court. The pica that the opposite party has not yet been examined cannot be raised. Each party has been given the right to ask for the discovery of facts and documents, as well as inspection of documents, from the opposite party and the latter is bound to disclose them as long as the matter is relevant to the suit (Order XI ). Each party is required to admit or deny the documents produced by the opposite party (Order XII ). A party can also call upon any other parly to the suit to admit for the purposes of the suit, any specific fact or facts. the Court is required to frame issues on the matters at which the parlies are found at variance (Order XIV ).

( 3 ) THE procedure for trying the case is laid down in Order XVII Rule 1 of the Code. It is in the following terms :

"1 (1) The Court may, if sufficient cause is shown,, at any stage of the suit grant time to the parlies or to any of them, and may from lime to time adjourn the hearing of the suit.

(2) In every such case the Court shall fix a day for the further hearing of the suit, and may make such order as it thinks fit with respect to the costs occasioned by the adjournment :

PROVIDED that, when the hearing of evidence has once begun, the hearing of the suit shall be continued from day to day until all the witnesses in attendance have been examined, unless the Court finds the adjournment of the hearing beyond the following day to be necessary for reasons to be recorded. "

THE proviso to sub-rule (2) unambiguously lays down that once the hearing of evidence has begun, the hearing has to continue from day to day till all the witnesses have been examined. Adjournment is an exception and continuous hearing is the rule. It is true that the Courts, in practice, have buried the rule fathoms deep and have been granting adjournments on the filmsiest of grounds. It is rare indeed when a Court holds a trial continuously in terms of this rule. But then this is no reason why this rule should not be followed and enforced in practice.

( 4 ) WAY back in 1925 Civil Justice Committee Report severly condemand the judiciary for continuously flouting the provisions of Order XVII Rule I by granting adjournments for every conceivable reason and failing to hold a continuous trial. After a lapse of 33 years the 14th Report of the Law Commission of India on "reform of Judicial Administration" (1958) notes with concern the failure of th co