ORDER :

This Civil Revision Petition has been filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, by the 1st plaintiff in O.S. No. 5 of 2011 pending on the file of the Principal District Court at Ariyalur, questioning the order dated 02.07.2019 dismissing I.A. No. 120 of 2018, which Interlocutory Application had been filed by the petitioner herein u/s 151 CPC calling upon the Court not to take on file an unregistered partition deed dated 05.03.1957, which document was sought to be marked as an Exhibit by the defendants in the suit.

2. The suit in O.S. No. 5 of 2011 had been filed seeking partition and separate of possession of the suit schedule properties and for a direction against the 1st defendant to render accounts and for costs of the suit.

3. The suit has been pending for the past 10 years without any effective progress. Thankfully, pleadings have been completed and the parties have now been invited to graze the witness box.

4. The plaintiffs and the defendants trace title to the properties mentioned in the schedule to the plaint to their grandfather, Rangaraja Nainar. The plaintiffs claim through one of his sons, Maharaj Nainar, which claim is disputed by the 1st defendant, who claims through another son, Nadusamy. None of the parties to the suit had toiled to purchase any of the properties. Naturally, they have ventured into litigation, thereby ensuring that pride and prejudice would always score over sense and sensibility.

5. The trial has just commenced and it would therefore be inappropriate on my part to delve into a discussion on the relative merits of the facts pleaded and I would leave that privilege to the learned Principal District Judge, Ariyalur.

6. A reading of the plaint would indicate that the plaintiffs have axe to grind against the 1st defendant in the suit.

7. In the written statement, the 1st defendant questioned the suit for partition, claiming that the surviving 4 sons of Rangaraja Nadar had divided the ancestral properties by an unregistered, unstamped partition deed dated 05.03.1957. All the signatories, all the witnesses and even the scribe to the document are dead. The arduous task of deciding admissibility, relevancy and proof of the said document has now been thrown open and the revision petitioner herein filed I.A. No. 120 of 2018, calling upon the Court to reject the same. The Court refused, leading to the filing of this Revision Petition. The said document had come for consideration in earlier proceedings between the parties to the disadvantage of Maharaja Nainar, through whom the plaintiffs claim, in O.P. No. 2 of 1985, which was a petition filed seeking Succession Certificate, and the said document is claimed to be one of the reasons to deny grant of Succession Certificate. That fact may not have a direct bearing on the discussions now required to decide whether an unstamped, unregistered partition deed can be relied on in a judicial proceedings, in the teeth of Sections 35 of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 and in the teeth of Sections 17 and 49 of the Registration Act, 1908.

8. The revision petitioner/1st plaintiff claims that the document should not be looked into for any purpose, the respondent/1st defendant claims that the document can be looked into for collateral purposes. The Learned Principal District Judge acceded with that view and stated that the document can be looked into to establish possession.

9. I have given careful consideration to the arguments advanced by Mr. P. Valliappan, who disputed such view of the learned Judge, and by Mr. S. Vijayakumar, who supported that view.

10. Section 35 of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 is as follows :

“35. Instruments not duly stamped inadmissible in evidence, etc.- No instrument chargeable with duty shall be admitted in evidence for any purpose by any person having by law or consent of parties authority to receive evidence, or shall be acted upon, registered or authenticated by any such person or by any public officer, unless such instrument is duly st