The main legal point established in the judgment is the right of parties to challenge expert opinions and provide counter-evidence under S.45 of the Indian Evidence Act.

1. The petitioner is the defendant in a suit filed by the plaintiff-respondent on a promissory note. The note is alleged to have been executed by the petitioner in favour of one Kariyan. Out of the amount due under the promissory note, the petitioner is alleged to have repaid Rs. 300/- and made an endorsement on the pro-note. Kariyan subsequently assigned his rights under the promissory note to the respondent, who is the plaintiff in the suit. The petitioner resisted the suit and denied the execution of the promissory note, the receipt of consideration and also the signature or thumb impression of the alleged endorsement. The respondent tiled I. A. No. 1829 of 1977 to send the promissory note to the Finger Print Expert, Trivandrum. The application was allowed and the promissory note was sent for expert opinion. The opinion of the expert is that the thumb impression on the promissory note is that of the revision petitioner. The revision petitioner challenged the correctness of the above opinion and filed I.A. No. 434 of 1978 praying that the suit promissory note be sent to another expert for comparison and report. The Court passed the impugned order dismissing the petition on the ground that there is already the opinion of an expert and it is not necessary to obtain another report.

2. The reasoning of the Munsiff is challenged. According to the petitioner, it is within his rights to get the report of another expert and satisfy the Court that the opinion already before it is wrong and unreliable.

The Court, according to the petitioner, should have allowed his prayer for sending the document to another expert.

3. S.45 of the Indian Evidence Act deals with opinion of experts. Under the said provision, when the Court has to form an opinion upon a point of foreign law, or of science or art, or as to identity of handwriting or finger impressions, the opinions upon that point of persons specially skilled in such matters are relevant facts. The section does not say that an opinion expressed by an expert is conclusive on the matter covered by it. On the other hand, it is a well-recognised fact that an expert's evidence being only an opinion, it is upto the parties to let in evidence challenging its correctness and it is upto the Court to form its own conclusions on the evidence. When direct evidence is forthcoming on the matter spoken to by an expert, the Court is not precluded from acting on such direct evidence in preference to the report of an expert. The value of the evidence of an expert would vary according to circumstances and also will depend upon the reasons given by him in support of his opinion. The value of an expert's opinion should be adjudged in the same way as the evidence of any other witness. The reasons given by him in forming the opinion are always open to scrutiny and the soundness of the view has to be tested in the light of the reasons given. It is always open to the opposite party to place materials before the Court to shake the foundation on which an expert opinion is formed. Such materials may be in the form of cross-examination of the expert himself or other counter-evidence. The counter-evidence may be the opinion of another person who is equally an expert in the matter which forms the issue in the case. Therefore, the reasons given by the Court for rejecting the petitioner's request to send the document for the opinion of another expert is not sustainable.

4. I may refer here to the decision of this Court in Narayana Kekannaya v. Dertnjathaya (1961 KLT. 960). In that case, a document was sent to a Calligraphic expert at Delhi for his opinion at the instance of the plaintiff After his report was received in Court, the defendant applied that the same document be sent to another expert at Madras for his opinion. The prayer was objected to by the plaintiff on the ground that once an expert opinion is available in the case, another should not be called upon unless and until the Court found the first opini