The court emphasized the importance of fulfilling procedural requirements for producing expert witnesses and held that failure to do so may result in the dismissal of the application.

1. - The defendant, by filing this revision petition under Section 115 C.P.C., has challenged the order dated 24-1-1998 passed by the learned Additional District Judge No. 2, Jodhpur whereby the application of the defendant filed under Section 151 C.P.C. for producing hand-writing expert in his evidence was rejected.

2. I have heard learned counsel for the petitioner-defendant and perused the impugned order.

3. During arguments, learned counsel for the petitioner admitted that the case was fixed for time evidence of the defendant on 29-11-1997. Time was given and the case was adjourned to 14-12-1997. Again time was given to the defendant and the case was fixed on 8-1-1998. Two witnesses were examined on that day. The defendant further wanted time. The Court again accommodated the defendant and fixed the case on 14-1-1998 for producing remaining evidence. Since the defendant has not produced any evidence, his evidence was closed.

4. The main grievance of the learned counsel for the defendant was that the defendant was very keen to produce the hand-writing expert in order to dispute the allegation made by the plaintiff that Ex. 21 was executed by the defendant. The defendant categorically denied his signature on the disputed document. In order to clinch the issue, the defendant wanted to avail of the expert opinion on the point. The defendant was compelled to conclude his evidence within a very short period as compared to the liberal latitude given to the plaintiff. If the defendant is not allowed to produce the hand-writing expert, great prejudice will be caused to him.

5. During arguments, learned counsel admitted that the defendant did not file any list of witnesses containing the name of the hand-writing expert. In other words, the defendant did not include any hand-writing expert as his witness to be produced in rebuttal. It also appears that the defendant never summoned any hand-writing expert at any stage of his evidence. From the times taken by the defendant, it appears that the defendant wanted to produce his evidence himself and conclude the same. If the defendant really wanted to produce any hand-writing expert, some spade work was to be done before the handwriting expert could be summoned before the Court. At some time, the defendant ought to have made a request to the Court to afford an opportunity to the defendant to enable his hand-writing expert to take photographs of the disputed documents and signatures for comparison with the standard signatures. No such work was done. It appears that by the above application, the defendant started his exercise afresh. He made a request to the Court that the hand-writing expert be summoned. It may be understood that the hand-writing expert cannot be summoned straightway unless he has, before-hand compared the disputed and standard signatures and prepared his opinion. This preliminary work has also not been done.

6. The trial Court has, therefore, committed no jurisdictional irregularity or illegality in dismissing the application of the defendant.

7. I find no substance in the revision petition and the same is hereby dismissed in limine.Petition dismissed.

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