The main legal point established in the judgment is that the Rent Tribunal has the authority to consider the admissibility of documents at the final stage of the proceedings, and the procedure for marking documents as Exhibit does not automatically make them admissible.

JUDGMENT

Ashok Kumar Gaur, J. - The present writ petition has been filed by the petitioner-tenant challenging the order/note dated 31.07.2012 passed by the Rent Tribunal, Jaipur Metropolitan, Jaipur (hereinafter shall be referred to as "the Rent Tribunal") whereby the document (Exhibit A-15) filed by the petitioner-tenant has been found inadmissible in evidence and the said document has been struck off.

2. The brief facts of the case are that the respondent-landlord filed an application for eviction of the petitioner-tenant under Section 15 of the Rajasthan Rent Control Act, 2001 (hereinafter shall be referred to as "the Act of 2001"). The respondent-landlord along with the eviction application, mentioned 10 documents in the list of documents, on which she relied and the same were marked by her as Exhibit-1 to Exhibit-10.

3. The petitioner-tenant filed reply to the said eviction application and along with his reply, he filed 15 documents and marked them as Exhibit A-1 to Exhibit A-15.

4. The petitioner-tenant has pleaded that while his evidence was recorded by the Rent Tribunal, in his cross examination, reference of a document marked as Exhibit A-15 was made and at that point of time, counsel for the respondent-landlord raised an objection about filing of the said document and marking the same as Exhibit A-15, as the same was a photostat copy of an agreement to sell dated 02.08.2007 and it was pleaded that on a photostat copy, the document could not have been marked as Exhibit.

5. The petitioner-tenant has pleaded that on such objection being raised, it was pleaded on his behalf that no objection was raised by the respondent-landlord or her counsel at the time of producing the document with the reply to the eviction application and as such, belated objection was not to be entertained by the Rent Tribunal.

6. The petitioner-tenant has pleaded that the Rent Tribunal, while hearing the said objection about marking of the document as Exhibit A-15, has found that though powers and procedure have been provided under sub-section (2) of Section 21 of the Act of 2001 whereby the documents which are filed before the Rent Tribunal by the applicant are distinctly marked as Exhibit-1, Exhibit-2 and so on in red ink and the documents filed by the respondent are similarly distinctly marked as Exhibit A-1, Exhibit A-2 and so on in red ink, however, the same power does not include to exhibit those documents which are inadmissible in evidence and the Rent Tribunal further found that only those documents which are admissible in nature, can be marked as Exhibit.

7. The petitioner-tenant has pleaded that the Rent Tribunal has further recorded a finding that the normal procedure given in the Civil Procedure Code is not applicable before the Rent Tribunal and as such, even if the document was tendered earlier, which is inadmissible in nature, the same document is required to be struck off and inadmissible in evidence.

8. Learned counsel for the petitioner-tenant has made following submissions:-

8A. The procedure and powers of the Rent Tribunal are provided in Section 21 of the Act of 2001 and whatever documents are filed before the Rent Tribunal by the applicant or by the respondent, the same are required to be distinctly marked by them as Exhibit-1 or Exhibit A-1 respectively. Counsel submitted that the petitioner-tenant, while filing reply to the eviction application, placed reliance on documents and he made a mention of such documents in para-12 of his reply and accordingly, he had marked them as Exhibit A-1 to Exhibit A-15 and as such, the Rent Tribunal could not have passed the order to strike off the said document which was already exhibited.

8B. The admissibility or inadmissibility of document will not be dependent on merely marking a document as Exhibit, before the Rent Tribunal and the stage of considering such document as admissible in evidence will be decided at the final stage and not during recording of evidence or cross examination of any witne