IMPORTANT POINT
A plaintiff cannot arbitrarily place on record documents that should have been produced at the time of filing the plaint, and the court will consider the reasons for not filing the documents earlier.

JUDGMENT :

Ajay Mohan Goel, J.

By way of this petition filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner has challenged order dated 09.02.2024, in terms whereof, an application filed by the petitioner who happens to be the plaintiff before the learned Trial Court, i.e. under Order VII, Rule 14 of the Civil Procedure Code has been dismissed.

2. Having heard learned counsel for the petitioner and having perused the documents appended with the petition as well as the impugned order, this Court does not finds any infirmity in the order passed by the learned Court below.

3. It could not be disputed during the course of arguments that before the present application was filed under Order VII, Rule 14 of the Civil Procedure Code, earlier also two applications were filed by the petitioner to the same effect and as has been held by learned Trial Court, it appears that the purpose of filing the application is nothing but to drag the litigation. The Civil Suit was filed by the plaintiff in the year 2012. The application under Order VII, Rule 14 of the Civil Procedure Code, which now stands dismissed by learned Trial Court has been filed somewhere in the year 2023.

4. Order VII, Rule 14 of the Civil Procedure Code which deals with production of documents on which plaintiff sues of relies, inter alia, provides that where plaintiff sues upon a document or relies upon a document in his possession or power in support of his claim, he shall enter such document in a list, and shall produce in a Court when the plaint is presented by him and shall at the same time deliver the document and a copy thereof, to be filed with the plaint. The provision further provides that where any such document is not in possession or power of the plaintiff, he shall wherever possible, state in whose possession or power it is. A document which ought to be produced in the Court by the plaintiff when the plaint is presented, or to be entered in the list to be added or annexed to the plaint but is not produced or entered accordingly, shall not without the leave of the Court, be received in evidence on his behalf at the hearing of the suit.

5. This Court is of the considered view that in the garb of this provision a plaintiff cannot at his whims or fancies, at any stage place on record documents which otherwise ought to have been produced at the time of filing of the plaint. Similarly, the Court also has to take into consideration the fact as to what prevented the plaintiff from either filing the document alongwith the plaint or before allowing any application filed under Order VII, Rule 14 of the Civil Procedure Code.

6. As it a matter of record that the suit was instituted as far back as in the year 2012 and as it is a matter of record that the application under Order VII, Rule 14 of the Civil Procedure Code was filed in the year 2023, learned Court below has rightly held that the reasons given in the application that though the documents were in possession of the plaintiff but he was not aware of the relevancy of the documents and it was only the counsel who advised him to place the documents on record did not inspire confidence. This Court is of the considered view that the intent behind filing the application was only to prolong the litigation.

7. Therefore, as this Court finds no infirmity in the impugned order, accordingly, the present petition is dismissed, so also the pending miscellaneous applications, if any.