The court has the discretion to decide whether to issue a commission to examine a witness, and this discretion should be exercised judicially. The expression "expenses of the commission" in O. 26, R. 15, C.P.C., can be construed to include the expenses of the other party to the litigation.

ORDER : - This is a Civil Revision Petition which is sought to be filed against the order made by the learned Subordinate Judge of Coimbatore in I.A.174 of 1954 in O.S.167 of 1952.

2. The facts are: In O.S.167 of 1952 the 1st defendant contended that the material document on which the suit was based has been sent privately to the Handwriting Expert and that he has given his opinion that the endorsement on the material document is a forgery and that therefore as his evidence would be unavailable to the Court unless he is subjected to cross-examination and re-examination, a commission may be issued to examine him at Nagpur. The learned Subordinate Judge rejected this application and hence this Revision Petition.

3. The point for consideration is whether this order can be interfered with in revision?

4. First of all, the learned Subordinate Judge has held that it would be convenient and better to examine the witness in Court so that the Court may have an opportunity of hearing his evidence itself and seeing the demeanour of the witness. In my opinion, this is not at all an unreasonable ground for rejecting the application. It is quite true that parties should not be put to unnecessary expense and trouble and where commissions can be issued within the permissible limits laid down under O.26, C.P.C., the Court would be exercising a proper discretion in assisting the parties to procure the evidence by issuing commissions. Otherwise much valuable evidence which would be of assistance in adjudicating the controversy would be lost.

That is why various statutes provide for the reception of the certificates issued by the Chemical Examiner, the Inspector of Explosives and the Analyst as evidence unless there are special circumstances where the Officer issuing the certificates has got to be examined. The principle is that in courts of law no testimony should normally be accepted as having any serious probative value unless it is subjected to cross-examination and the Court itself has an opportunity of observing the demeanour of the witnesses.

5. In a plain case of forgery where the evidence of the Expert would naturally be supple mentary, Courts probably would and should exercise their discretion in favour of the Handwriting Expert being examined on Commission. But in a case where the Court thinks, owing to the nature of the forgery and the testimony which would be forthcoming, that the Expert should appear before it and it should be able to intelligently follow the testimony and subject it to further test in the light of the evidence given before Court, and it should also incidentally watch the demeanour of the witness to satisfy itself that the testimony was being given by a competent and qualified person who knows what he is speaking about, I cannot say that it is an unreasonable exercise of its jurisdiction to refuse a commission.

Quite different, for instance, would be the case of a thumb impression Expert where the evidence has to be assessed mechanically by evaluating the points of resemblance and the points of difference and come to a conclusion. Therefore, a hard and fast rule cannot be laid down in regard to the issue of commission for calligraphic Expert. It will depend upon the circumstances of each case and it will certainly be open to the trial Court to exercise its discretion about issuing a commission or insisting upon the examination of the Expert in Court.

6. The necessity for not interfering with this discretion unless it has been perversely exercised is due to the fact that so uncertain and inexact is the science of the study of calligraphy that it has been for some years past the tendency to regard evidence even of Experts as of somewhat inconclusive character. Expert evidence on handwriting is peculiarly fallacious where the dissimilarity relied upon is not that of general character, but merely of particular letters - J.C. Glastaun v. Sonatan Pal, AIR 1925 Cal 485 (A). A comparison of signature is a mode of ascertai