IMPORTANT POINT
The court reaffirmed that the discretion to allow late document production should prioritize substantial justice over procedural technicalities.

ORDER :

1. With the consent of learned counsel for both parties, the writ petition has been heard finally on merits.

2. Instant writ petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India has been filed by the petitioner-defendant No. 2, feeling aggrieved by the order dated 09.05.2022 passed by the Additional District Judge No. 4, Jaipur District in Civil Suit No. 69/2018, dismissing his application under Order VIII Rule 1(3) CPC and declining to take the original bank passbooks and bank statement of defendant No. 1-Radha Kishan Purohit (now deceased) and of defendant No. 2-Anil Kumar Purohit.

3. Brief facts of the case as revealed from the record are that the respondent No. 1-plaintiff has filed a civil suit for partition and permanent injunction in respect of three immovable properties described in Para No. 2 of the plaint. The suit has been resisted by the petitioner-defendant No. 2 and in the written statements, a plea has been raised that an another immovable property Plot No. B-36, Anita Colony, Bajaj Nagar, Jaipur is also joint property of family, which has not been included by the plaintiff in the suit of partition and a counter claim has made in the written statement. In respect of this property, the defendant No. 2 has pleaded that the property was purchased in the name of plaintiff and he was funded by father-defendant No. 1-Radha Kishan Purohit (now deceased) as also by defendant No. 2. As per the respective pleadings of parties, issues have been framed and suit is at the stage of recording plaintiff’s evidence.

It is noteworthy that after filing of the present civil suit, on defendant No. 1-Radha Kishan Purohit, who is father of plaintiff-defendant No. 2, has passed away on 15.02.2019 and in his place, his wife i.e. the mother of parties has been substituted as defendant No. 1/1. It is to be noted that other legal representatives of deceased-defendant No. 1, who are two sons and two daughters are already party in the present civil suit.

4. At the stage of plaintiff’s evidence, the defendant No. 2 moved an application dated 30.11.2021, seeking leave of Court to produce the original passbook and bank statement of Khata No. 7812 of Punjab National Bank, Jaipur belonging to father defendant No. 1-Radha Kishan Purohit and passbook of State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur and Bank of Rajasthan, belonging to defendant No. 2-Anil Kumar Purohit. In the application, defendant No. 2 pleaded that these passbooks are relevant to the issue involved in the present civil suit with counter claim to show that the property which was purchased in the name of plaintiff, was funded by the plaintiff’s father and brother through bank transactions. Hence, in order to show such bank transactions, these passbooks were sought to be produced.

5. The application was resisted by the plaintiff and reply was filed stating inter alia that since the passbook of father bears cutting and overwriting at several places as much as same has been produced after his death, hence, such passbook and bank statement are not authentic and genuine document, hence, cannot be taken on record. In addition, objection was also raised that there is no reason for not producing the passbooks along with the written statement. Hence, it was prayed that application be dismissed.

6. Learned trial Court, after pondering over the nature of documents which are bank passbooks and bank statement of defendants No. 1 & 2, observed in the impugned order that entries in the passbook bear cutting, overwriting and interpolation at several places as much as there is difference in the entries of handwritten passbook and the bank statement of defendant No. 1, therefore, the passbook does not seem to be an authentic and genuine document. Further, the trial Court observed that defendant has not assigned any sufficient reason for not producing these passbooks with the written statement. Accordingly, with such observations, the trial Court rejected the application of defendant No. 2 vide order dated 09.0