The court upheld the trial court's decision to dismiss applications for secondary evidence and under Order 7 Rule 14(3) CPC, affirming that primary evidence must be available for secondary evidence to be admissible.

Order :

 1. This civil writ petition has been filed by the petitioners-plaintiffs (for short 'the plaintiffs') against the orders dated 10.11.2004 and 14.12.2007 passed by Additional District and Sessions Judge (Fast Track) No.2, Sikar by which the said court dismissed the applications filed by the plaintiffs.

2. Learned counsel for the plaintiffs submits that the plaintiffs filed a suit against the respondents-defendants (for short 'the defendants') for partition, declaration and permanent injunction in which plaintiffs filed an application under Order 7 Rule 14(3) CPC, which was partly disallowed by the trial court vide its order dated 10.11.2004. The plaintiffs filed another application under Section 65 of the Indian Evidence Act for leading the secondary evidence in relation to the said documents but the same has also been dismissed by the trial court vide order dated 14.12.2007.

3. Learned counsel for the plaintiffs further submits that Harphool Singh used to sign in English and not in Hindi. So, secondary evidence was required to be led in respect of those documents but trial court vide its order dated 14.12.2007 wrongly dismissed the application filed by the plaintiffs, hence the impugned orders be set aside and applications filed by the plaintiffs be allowed and the plaintiffs be permitted to lead secondary evidence in relation to the documents.

4. Learned counsel for the defendants has opposed the arguments advanced by the learned counsel for the plaintiffs and submitted that trial court has rightly refused to lead secondary evidence in relation to documents vide its order dated 14.12.2007 and rightly partly disallowed application filed by the plaintiffs under Order 7 Rule 14(3) CPC. So, the present civil writ petition filed by the plaintiffs being devoid of merit, is liable to be dismissed.

5. I have considered the arguments advanced by learned counsel for the plaintiffs as well as learned counsel for the defendants.

6. It is an admitted position that documents for which plaintiffs wanted to lead secondary evidence had already been denied to be taken on record by the trial court. So, in my considered opinion, trial court rightly disallowed the application filed by the plaintiffs for adducing the secondary evidence in relation to those documents. So, the present civil writ petition filed by the plaintiffs being devoid of merit, is liable to be dismissed, which stands dismissed accordingly.