A court-appointed local investigation commission is intended to elucidate disputed field conditions, not to act as a mechanism for parties to gather evidence or outsource their burden of proof. Courts must reject such applications when the requested scope is a roving inquiry into factual ownership or business valuation.

JUDGMENT :

BIPIN GUPTA, J.

1. The present civil writ petition has been filed assailing the order dated 22.10.2024, passed by learned Additional District and Session Judge, No. 6, Jaipur Metropolitan-II, in Civil Suit No. 47/2020 (CIS No. 42925/2014), whereby the application filed by the petitioner under Order 26 Rule 9 of Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (herein after referred to as ‘CPC’) was dismissed.

2. The brief facts giving rise to the present writ petition are that the plaintiff-petitioner filed a suit for rendition of accounts, declaration and permanent injunction contending therein that she was inducted as a partner in the respondent firm, a registered partnership firm bearing Registration No. 1615/64, and held 25% share as per records of the Registrar of Firms. It was further stated that another respondent was inducted as a partner in 1980, and as per subsequent registration records obtained in 2025, the petitioner continues to be shown as an existing partner.

2.1 The petitioner was repeatedly denied access to the firm’s financial records, including balance sheets, accounts, and profit and loss statements, despite several requests, thereby depriving her of information relating to her alleged share in the firm’s assets and profits. It was further alleged that the respondents wrongfully claimed that she had retired from the partnership on the basis of a forged retirement deed dated 01.04.1994, bearing allegedly forged signatures, which, according to a private forensic examination, were not of the petitioner.

2.2 It was also the petitioner’s case that the firm owns substantial immovable properties situated at Sanganer, Jaipur, measuring approximately 5000 sq. yards and 2000 sq. yards.

2.3 During the trial, the petitioner moved an application under Order 26 Rule 9 CPC seeking appointment of a commissioner for local investigation to ascertain the nature, ownership, and valuation of the firm’s movable and immovable assets, on the ground that records pertaining to title were old, incomplete, and not traceable and for proper adjudication of the dispute relating to accounts and partnership rights, are required to be acquired through commissioner. It was submitted that the application was filed after completion of the petitioner’s evidence, at a stage when defendant evidence was being recorded, and was not intended to fill lacunae.

2.4 After hearing both the parties, the learned trial Court dismissed the said application vide order dated 22.10.2024.

3. Aggrieved by the same, the present writ petition has been preferred by the plaintiff-petitioner.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the impugned order dated 22.10.2024 passed by the learned trial Court is arbitrary, unjust, and unsustainable in law as it suffers from non-consideration of material facts on record.

4.1 Learned counsel argued that the discretion under Order 26 Rule 9 CPC, though judicial, must be exercised to advance the purpose of “elucidating” the matter in dispute, and ordinarily a commissioner ought to be appointed where it assists in effective adjudication unless there are cogent reasons such as malafide intent or undue delay, which are absent in the present case.

4.2 He further submitted that the learned trial Court failed to appreciate that the application was necessitated due to inability to obtain old and untraceable records relating to the firm’s immovable properties and accounts, and was not intended to fill lacunae in evidence but to clarify the nature, extent,