Point of Law : Documents in original shall be produced as primary evidence as mandated under Section 64 of the Indian Evidence Act.

JUDGMENT :

This Original Petition has been filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India by the petitioner herein, who is the 1st defendant in O.S.No.965/2012, pending before the Principal Munsiff Court, Neyyattinkara, where O.S.No.261/2013 filed against the petitioner and others also has been pending.

2. The questions emerges in the Original Petition is whether copy of a document applied for, is a certified copy, the same can be issued? or the same is prohibited by law?

3. To be on the crux of the dispute, as per Ext.P5 order, the application put up by the petitioner to get copy of a certified/ registration copy of Otti and Kuzhikanam deed No.1174/1098 obtained from the Registrar Office and produced before the court, was disallowed by the Munsiff Court, in a case where the respondents raised contention that there is no provision to issue copy of the certified copy of a document.

4. In this case, the Munsiff Court disallowed the application for the reasons extracted hereunder :

“The reason stated for the present petition is that the deed was torn. It is not made out from the affidavit in support of the petition as to whether the original of deed No.1174/1098 was torn or the copy of original deed entered in Book No.1 kept in the Sub Registrar's Office was torn. If the register concerned was torn, it is not known what happened to the original deed. At the time of argument also, the petitioner's side could not clarify the said aspect. It assumes importance since the application is for getting copies of the certified copy of a document. Hence the petition lacks bonafide and it is liable to be dismissed.”

5. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner as well as the respondents.

6. The dispute is confined to the question as to whether copy of a document applied for, is a certified copy, the same can be issued? or the same is prohibited by law? In fact, in the decision reported in Vivek Nair v. Puravankara Projects Ltd., Bangalore [2017 (3) KHC 387 : 2017 (3) KLT 93], this Court considered similar question with reference to Sections 64 and 65 of the Indian Evidence Act read with Rule 22 of Criminal Rules of Practice. It was held in paragraphs 9 and 10 as under :

“9. The probable objection to the issuance of certified copies to the petitioner is that the documents produced by the respondent are copies. S.64 Evidence Act declares that documents must be proved by primary evidence except in the cases mentioned in S.65. S.65 gives the situations when secondary evidence may be given. Copies other than certified copies are also secondary evidence if they satisfy the requirements of S.63. Thus the Indian Evidence Act makes copies other than certified copies admissible in evidence. If a copy other than certified copy produced by a party is admitted in evidence in a case, the Court cannot refuse to issue its certified copy to the opposite side on the ground that the admitted document is only a copy. It is clear that there is no total embargo on issuing certified copy of a copy. This also supports the view that certified copies of documents produced along with the complaint - though they themselves are copies - may be issued to the accused.

10. The petitioner is entitled to get copies of the documents produced by the respondent. Whether the certified copies are admissible in a case or not is not a matter to be looked into by the Court which issues the copies. The entitlement of an accused to get copies of the documents produced by the complainant does not depend upon the admissibility of the copies so issued. But to avoid any possible misuse, the Court may note in red ink at the foot of the certified copies that they are certified copies of copies.”

7. In this matter, the petitioner put up application before the Sub Registrar for getting a certified copy/registration copy of the document and the said application was not materialised since it was reported by the Sub Registrar that the document was torn and, therefore, the copy could not be issued