Admissibility of document to be decided at a later stage.

(Revision Petition filed against the order dated 9.3.2004, made in I.A.No.1231/2003 in I.A.No.486/2002 in O.S.No.86/2002, on the file of the District Munsif Court, Sankari.)

This revision petition has been filed by plaintiff in O.S.No.86/2002 on the file of District Munsif Court, Sankari. The suit was filed by the plaintiff for a permanent injunction restraining the defendants from interfering with peaceful possession and enjoyment of the suit schedule property which is land and building.

2. After filing the written statement the defendants/respondents filed I.A.No.486/2002 to struck off the suit from the file on the ground that the plaintiff was not the owner of the property and therefore he is not entitled to file the suit on behalf of his wife. When I.A.No.486/2002 was pending, the revision petitioner as plaintiff filed I.A.No.1231/2003 under Order 7 Rule 14(3) of the Code of Civil Procedure for receiving the document dated 5.9.2003 which is the settlement deed executed by his wife in his favour when the suit was pending. This application was resisted by the respondents herein by contending that even after the settlement deed which is hit by lis pendence, the revision petitioner cannot derive any title or possession and therefore the suit filed by the petitioner herein is not maintainable.

3. The trial Judge by order dated 9.3.2004, accepted the contentions of the respondents herein and dismissed the application. Aggrieved by the order the plaintiff has filed the above revision petition.

4. Heard the learned counsel for the revision petitioner and the learned counsel for the respondents.

5. The learned counsel for the petitioner contended that wherever subsequent events of facts or law which have a material bearing on the entitlement of the parties to relief or on aspects which bear on moulding the relief occur, the court is not precluded from taking a cautious cognizance of the subsequent changes in fact and law to mould the relief. He also submitted that I.A.No.1231/2003 was filed for getting the permission to mark the document, which is the settlement deed dated 5.9.2003, executed by the wife of the plaintiff in his favour, after the suit was filed. This subsequent event of fact will have a material bearing on the relief sought for by the plaintiff and therefore the trial court ought to have taken cautious cognizance of the subsequent event of fact by receiving the document dated 5.9.2003. He relied on the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court reported in AIR 1992 S.C. 700 (Ramesh Kumar v. Kesho Ram) for this purpose.

6. I find force in the submission of the learned counsel for the petitioner. Without going into the merits of the order dated 9.3.2004, passed by the trial Judge, I hold that the approach adopted by the trial Judge to reject the application is not in consonance with the guidelines given by the Hon'ble Supreme Court as well as our High Court.

7. In (2001) 3 SCC 1 (Bipin Shantilal Panchal v. State of Gujarat), the Hon'ble Supreme Court held as follows:-

"13. It is an archaic practice that during the evidence-collecting stage, whenever any objection is raised regarding admissibility of any material in evidence the court does not proceed further without passing order on such objection. But the fallout of the above practice is this: Suppose the trial court, in a case, upholds a particular objection and excludes the material from being admitted in evidence and then proceeds with the trial and disposes of the case finally. If the appellate or the revisional court, when the same question is recanvassed, could take a different view on the admissibility of that material in such cases the appellate court would be deprived of the benefit of that evidence because that was not put on record by the trial court. In such a situation the higher court may have to send the case back to the trial court for recording that evidence and then to dispose of the case afresh. Why should the trial prolong like that unnecessarily