A defendant cannot compel another defendant to appear before the Court as his witness, as it is an unapproved form of evidence and would result in cross-examination by his own counsel.

First defendant is the revision petitioner. He wanted to examine the second defendant as a witness. The trial Court rejected I. A. 401 of 1990 which was filed to direct the second defendant to appear before the Court as a witness.

2. A defendant cannot compel another defendant to appear before the Court as his witness. The practice of citing the opposite party as a witness has been condemned as an unapproved form of evidence. If such a practice is allowed, it would result in cross-examination by his own counsel. To illustrate, if the second defendant is examined by the first defendant's counsel the counsel of the former gets the opportunity to cross-examine his own client. This is an unwholesome practice. Indeed it will be a strange spectacle. Such a practice was condemned by the Privy Council in Kishori Lai v. Chunni Lai (ILR XXXI Allahabad 116). The court observed:

"As to this last matter, it would appear from the judgment of the High Court that in India it is one of the artifices of a weak and somewhat paltry kind of advocacy for each litigant to cause his opponent to be summoned as a witness, with the design that each party shall be forced to produce the opponent so summoned as witness, and thus give the counsel for each litigant the opportunity of cross-examining his own client. It is a practice which their Lordships cannot help thinking all judicial tribunals ought to set themselves to render as abortive as it is objectionable. It ought never to be permitted in the result to embarrass judicial investigation as it has done in this instance."

In Koshy Eapen v. ldikulaVarghese(VT.L.T.271) a Division Bench of the High Court of Travancore held that the practice of citing the opposite party as a witness, has to be condemned as an unapproved form of evidence.' A similar view was taken by this Court in Narayana Pillay v. Kallyani Amma (1963 KLT 537).

3. Learned Munsiff has rightly held that the first defendant cannot compel the second defendant to be examined as a witness for him. The Civil Revision is dismissed. No costs.