IMPORTANT POINT
The court established that procedural rules should not prevent the admission of evidence necessary for achieving substantial justice.

JUDGMENT :

DEVAN RAMACHANDRAN, J.

1. The petitioner challenges Ext.P6 order issued by the learned Family Court, Malappuram, rejecting his application preferred under Order 8 Rule 1A(3) of the Civil Procedure Code (CPC), seeking that certain documents be allowed to be produced in evidence; and explaining that the delay in producing the same was because he misplaced it, while his residence had been shifted earlier.

2. The learned Family Court, however, dismissed the application filed by the petitioner, saying that if such documents are accepted, it would deny opportunity to the Original Petitioner, because her evidence had already been completed - the Original Petition having been filed by her seeking return of gold and impelling other financial claims.

3. The petitioner, through his learned counsel - Smt. Sai Pooja, argued that the afore opinion of the learned Family Court is in error; and that even if it is assumed that it is right in holding that new evidence cannot be allowed to be let in without proper opportunity being given to PW1, it should have gone ahead to recall the said witness, rather than to have shut out her client’s legitimate endeavour to substantiate his contentions through germane inputs. Smt. Sai Pooja relied upon the judgment of the Honourable Supreme Court in Sugandhi (Dead) by LRs. and Another v. P. Rajkumar Rep. by His Power Agent Imam Oli (Civil Appeal No. 3427 of 2020) in substantiation and argued that, except in very compelling or exceptional circumstances, the right of a litigant to lead evidence cannot be shut out.

4. We notice from the endorsements on file that, even though service to the respondent has been completed, she has chosen not to be present in person, or to be represented through counsel. In fact, we have waited several days for the appearance of the respondent; but even today, the situation is the same. Obviously, therefore, we are constrained to dispose of this Original Petition in her absence.

5. We have examined Ext.P6 and as rightly argued by Smt.Sai Pooja, the primary reason given by the learned Trial Court, in rejecting the application of the petitioner, is that the evidence of the respondent/original petitioner as PW1 has been completed and that therefore, if new documents are allowed to be admitted, it would cause her irreparable prejudice.

6. In an abstract sense, we cannot find fault with the learned Trial Court, but the question is whether it could have rejected the application of the petitioner, or it ought to have offered opportunity to PW1 of being recalled and examined further.

7. As rightly contended by Smt.Sai Pooja, in Sugandhi (supra), the Honourable Supreme Court has made the law luculent that, normally, procedural or technical hurdles cannot stand in the way of Courts rendering substantial justice and that litigation is only a journey towards truth, which is its foundational edifice, enjoining Courts to act in such perspective, to unearth the underlying truth in every dispute. This has been recently reaffirmed by the Honourable Supreme Court in Levaku Pedda Reddamma and Others v. Gottumukkala Venketa Subbamma and Another, 2022 Live Law (SC) 533, holding that refusing to permit production of additional evidence even if there is some delay would amount to denial of justice.

8. Apodictically, the position of law affirmatively thus declared that evidence cannot be normally shut out, though it must be ensured that it does not cause prejudice to the other side, for the reasons as are noticed in this case.

9. As we have indicated above, the learned Trial Court has held that since the evidence of the original petitioner is over, if the documents sought to be produced by the petitioner – which are nearly 49 in number – are allowed to be admitted, it would cause her irreparable prejudice. We are, however, of the firm view that such prejudice could have perhaps been averted, had PW1 or other relevant witnesses been given an opportunity of being recalled and allowed to offer additional t