ORDER

23.3.2004 — Heard.

2. In this writ petition, defendant No.1 of Title Suit No. 460 of 1998 of the Court of Civil Judge (Jr. Division), Nimapara challenges to the order passed by that Court on 22.9.2003 in rejecting the application filed by defendant No.1 for acceptance of two documents as evidence and to mark them as Exhibits on his behalf.

3. It appears from Annexure 1, copy of the plaint, that plaintiffs have filed the suit seeking declaration of defendant No. 1 being the husband of plaintiff No.1 and challenging to the status of defendant No. 2 as legally wedded wife of defendant No.1 and for consequential relief relating to the suit schedule properties. Defendant No. 1 filed written statement contesting to the averments made by the plaintiffs. Both the parties being at issue, trial of the suit was taken up. In course of hearing, each of the parties adduced both oral and documentary evidence. At the stage of argument, defendant No. 1/ the writ petitioner filed two documents, i.e., an order of bail granted in his favour in a Criminal Case and the certified copy of the Birth Register relat¬ing to defendant No.2 giving birth to a female child and filed the impugned application for acceptance of that in evidence and to mark that as Exhibit. Trial Court has rejected that applica¬tion, inter alia, on the ground that defendant No.1 has not ex¬plained the reason for the delay in filing of those documents and, above all, there is no whisper about such documents in the pleading of that party.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioner states that, keeping in view the nature of the dispute the aforesaid two documents are relevant to be considered. He states that both the documents being public documents, there could not have been objection for accepting them in evidence for being marked as Exhibits. In support of his contention, Mr. R. K. Mohapatra, learned counsel for the petitioner refers to and relies on the ratio in the cases of Biswanath Satpathy and others vs. Subarna Dibya and another, A.I.R. 1975 Orissa 39; Property Association of Baptist Churches Private Limited and another vs. State of Orissa and others, 1984 (1) O.LR. 164; and Bhikari Charan Patra vs Basanti Bewa and others, 1984 (1) O.L.R. 946.

5. Learned counsel for the plaintiffs/opposite parties on the other hand argues that the order impugned is not a case decided and apart from that non-interference with the impugned order will not result in a manifest illegality and therefore, this Court, in exercise of the jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, should not interfere with the impugned order. He further states that when defendant No.1 in his applica¬tion has not stated the reason for which such documents were not filed at the stage of filing the written statement, settlement of issues or hearing of the suit, therefore, such documents should not be accepted on record after closure of evidence from both the sides and more so when such averments are not relevant to consid¬er whether plaintiff No.1 or the defendant No.2 is the legally married wife of defendant No.1.

6. The settled principle of law, as stated in the case of Bhikari Charan Patra (supra) is that the document filed at any stage of the suit or proceeding to be tendered as evidence can be accepted as evidence if there is good ground for condoning the delay and to accept such evidence and if such document is neces¬sary in the interest of justice to be perused for proper adjudi¬cation of the dispute. That view has also been taken in the other two cited decisions (supra).

7. The impugned order if allowed to remain uninterfered, then that leads to the consequence of not considering those two documents by the Court below while evaluating to the evidence from both the parties. Therefore, the consequence of refusal to accept such evidence is not to reject the case of the defendant on merit in as much as he has already led his evidence in support of the plea taken in the written statement Therefore