The main legal point established in the judgment is the admissibility of documents filed in court as public documents and the procedure for obtaining certified copies. The court emphasized the importance of expediting trial proceedings by summarily considering objections to admissibility.

K.Kannan, J.

1. The revision is filed against the order dated 13,10.2010 passed in a pending suit declining permission to give evidence with reference to certain documents, which had already been filed in Court and marked but which had not been exhibited to be read in evidence. The documents, which were sought to be filed were certain pleadings filed in Civil Suit No. 312 of 1989, Civil Suit No,135 of 1989 and Civil Suit No.178 of 1989.

2. The trial Court, while dismissing the petition, has observed that the suit had been filed by the petitioner for declaration claiming himself to be the owner under a document of purchase dated 29.11.1988 and for a further declaration that a judgment and decree obtained in Civil Suit No.615 of 1987 was illegal and null and void. The trial Court also noted that the plaintiff had already tendered the said evidence in his rebuttal evidence and though they had been marked on 15.09.2009, the same could not be exhibited in evidence since the evidence of both the parties have been closed and it had not been explained in the case as to how the additional evidence sought to be produced was material evidence to the present case. I would have felt inclined to serve notice to the respondent If there was anything substantial to be considered but it has become a recurrent practice to hold up trials for flimsy reasons and the purpose of even amending Section 115 of Civil Procedure Code has become counter-productive. The litigants have. now learnt to approach the Court for intervention under Article 227 of the Constitution of India.

3. If this case were to be considered as merely on the touchstone of the strict applicability of Article 227, I would have had no difficulty in simply rejecting the petition and confirming the order. However, I find that here the mistake was not merely of the party trying to put some documents in evidence of what had already been filed but there was also an error in approach by the Court itself in the manner of piloting its own proceedings.

4. First of all, it must be noticed that a certified copy of a plaint or written statement or a judgment filed in court are not confidential but to the extent to which certified copies could be obtained by parties to proceedings, as also by any third party, on giving reasons for seeking for copies, they are public documents. Section 74 defines "public documents" as follows:

74. Public documents.- The following documents are public documents- (1) documents forming the acts or records of the acts- (i) of the sovereign authority,

(ii) of official bodies and tribunals, and

(iii) of public officers, legislative, judicial and executive, [of any part of India or of the Commonwealth], or of a foreign country;

(2) public records kept [in any State] of private documents.

A copy of plaint or written statement are private documents, but if they are filed in court and retained as permanent records by a public officer, they partake the character of "public documents". If a person has a right to inspect such a public document, the right to obtain a certified copy is provided under section 76 of the Act. It provides as follows:

"76. Certified copies of public documents.- Every public officer having the custody of a public document, which any person has a right to inspect, shall give that person on demand a copy of it on payment of the legal fees therefore, together with a certificate written at the foot of such copy that it is a true copy of such document or part thereof, as the case may be, and such certificate shall be dated and subscribed by such officer with his name and his official title, and shall be sealed, whenever such officer is authorized by law to make use of a seal; and such copies so certified shall be called certified copies.

Explanation.- Any officer who, by the ordinary course of official duty, is authorized to deliver such copies, shall be deemed to have the custody of such documents within the meaning of this section."

5. Unlike a d