Honble MILAP CHANDRA JAIN, J.—This revision petition has been filed by the plaintiff against the order of the Munsif City (North), Udaipur dated December 11, 1990 by which he has closed his evidence. The facts of the case giving rise to this revision may be summarised thus.

2. In the year 1982, the plaintiff filed a suit against the Municipal Council, Udaipur and the Assistant Engineer, National Highway, Udaipur for injunction in respect of a piece of land given to him for temporary use as a licencee by the Municipal Council. The defendants are contesting the suit. The plaintiff did not produce his evidence despite innumerable adjournments and ultimately his evidence was closed by the trial court on December 11, 1990 by its impugned order.

3. It has been contended by the learned counsel for the plaintiff-petitioner that the learned trial court has acted with material irregularity and illegality in the exercise of its jurisdiction in closing the plaintiffs evidence, the plaintiff was not going to gain anything by not producing evidence, the trial court has acted technically and rules of procedure are hand maids of justice and they are not to trap the licencee. He relied upon the Collector, Land Acquisition, Anantnag vs. Katiji (1), Sangram Singh vs. Election Tribunal Kota (2), Surjan vs. Raghunandan (3), Rupendra Deb vs. Ashrumati Debi (4) and Shiv Sharan Sharma vs. Umed Chand Kasliwal (5).

4. The ground on which the impugned order has been assailed is mentioned in para no. 4 of the revision petition. It would be best to quote it here. It runs as under:—

"That in any case the learned court below has failed to consider the repeated exposition of law as made in various judgments of this Honble Court, other High Courts and Honble Supreme Court namely that all rules of procedure are intended to be hand maids of justice and the rules should be so interpreted so as to advance the cause of justice and not allowed it to be throuled promptitude and despatch are desirable things but not at the cost of the justice. In Satya Narain Transport Companys case it has clearly been held that fullest opportunity should be given to the party to produce the evidence and the evidence should never be closed unless of course the Court feels bound having no other way out. Howsoever negligent the earlier Omission may have been whether to produce evidence or even to furnish process fees and notice the evidence should not be closed if the other party can be adequately compensated by costs. In Sangram Singhs case the apex Court has observed that the rules of procedure are not of public use to trip and drip litigants. The Courts are required to and expected to do substantial justice and not to administer discipline. Likewise the latest pronouncement of the apex court in the case of Collector, Land Acquisition, the appellant gain fully invokes where it has been observed that judiciary is respected not because it is capable of legalising in justice on technical grounds but because it is capable of doing substantial justice and is expected to do so. It has further been observed that where the considerations of technicalities of law and substantial justice are pitted against which other the formers should yield to the later. if all these cases are considered in their right perspective and spirit it is more than clear that a year, poor homage has been paid to the dictates of the apex Court which is law of the land, and this impugned order is liable to be set aside.

5. Admittedly, the suit is pending since 1982 and temporary injunction has been obtained by the plaintiff. The impugned order dated December 11, 1990 recites that last opportunities were given to the plaintiff-petitioner on payment of costs to produce his evidence on August 25, 1989 and also on April 23, 1990 and the plaintiff had two more opportunities to produce his evidence between April 23, 1990 and December 11, 1990. The question of giving last opportunity for producing evidence arises only after a par

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