High Court exercising supervisory jurisdiction u/A 227 of the Constitution can set aside such orders.

(This petition is preferred under Article 227 of the Constitution of India against the order and decreetal order, dated 21.7.2004 made in IA No.451 of 2004 in OS No.82 of 1999 on the file of the District Munsif Court, Ramanathapuram.)

Some of the defendants, who have failed in their attempt, seeking reception of certain documents, are the revision petitioners.

2. The respondent in this case has filed a suit against the defendants for partition and separate possession of her 1/12 share in the suit property, which is opposed by the defendants. While the suit is pending, the contesting defendants have filed a petition, of course, quoting a wrong provision for reception of documents, as detailed in IA No.451 of 2004. Totally, they have filed 13 documents or so.

3. One of the documents filed along with the petition, dated 25.6.1984 appears to be a release deed. The plaintiff opposed the reception of documents on the ground, since the release deed sought to be produced is an unregistered one, the same cannot be received. As far as the other documents are concerned, I find from the counter affidavit that there was no objection for their reception.

4. The learned District Munsif, Ramnad, without going through the documents, only on the basis of the objections, since the document, dated 25.6.1984 is an unregistered one, the same cannot be exhibited in evidence, accepting the objection of the plaintiff as far as the one document is concerned, without assigning any valid reason even for not receiving the other documents, dismissed the petition on 21.7.2004, which is under challenge in this revision.

5. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioners and the learned counsel for the respondent.

6. The learned counsel for the revision petitioners submitted that the petition is aimed only to condone the delay for the purpose of filing the documents, since they were not filed along with the written statement, and therefore condoning the delay, accepting the reasons alleged in the affidavit, since the same is satisfactory, the trial court ought to have received the documents, subject to proof and relevancy and the admissibility of the documents in evidence, if at all has to be considered only at the time of marking the documents as exhibits, which stage has not reached. Therefore, according to him, the trial court has committed an error apparently deviating the procedures established and adopted, and therefore exercising the jurisdiction of this Court under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, the said failure of the court, which had not properly exercised its jurisdiction, has to be set right, by allowing this revision.

7. In response to the above submission, the learned counsel for the respondent submitted that the revision itself is not maintainable under Section 115 CPC, and therefore circumventing the same, Article 227 of the Constitution of India cannot be invoked and in this view, the revision itself is not maintainable. It is the further submission of the learned counsel for the respondent that one of the documents sought to be filed being an unregistered document, captioned or styled as release deed with respect to the immovable property, the same cannot be admitted in evidence for want of registration.

8. Order 13 Rule 1 CPC directs the parties or their pleader to produce all the documentary evidence along with the plaint or written statement and it also provides the documents could be filed before the settlement of issues. In this case, the petition filed must be only after the settlement of issues, since the suit was filed in the year 1999. At present, original Order 13 Rule 2 CPC, which was available to condone the delay in filing the documents, is not available under Order 13 CPC. Deleting that provision, Order 8 Rule 1-A(3) is introduced, which reads,

"A document which ought to be produced in Court by the defendant under this rules, but, is not so produced shall not, without the leave of the Court, be received in evid