The main legal point established in the judgment is that an application to recall witnesses for cross-examination must be supported by valid reasons and cannot be allowed if it is an abuse of the process of law.

JUDGMENT

Alka Sarin, J. (Oral) - The present revision petition has been filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India for setting aside the impugned order dated 08.03.2018 (Annexure P-3) whereby the Trial Court has allowed the re-examination of PW1-Gurjit Kaur and PW3-Jagtar Singh on the ground that material questions remained to be put to the said witnesses.

2. Learned counsel for the plaintiff-petitioners would contend that the application for recalling PW1 and PW3 for re-examination has been permitted on grounds which are beyond the scope of Order 18 Rule 17 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.

3. Per contra, learned counsel for the defendant-respondent has contended that no prejudice would be caused to the plaintiff-petitioners in case the witnesses are recalled for cross-examination. It is further the contention that when the witnesses were cross-examined earlier, some material questions remained to be put to the witnesses and, hence, it was necessary to recall the witnesses for further cross-examination.

4. Heard.

5. In the present case, the evidence of the witnesses (PW1 and PW3) was recorded and, thereafter, their cross-examination was also conducted. Subsequently, an application was filed by the defendantrespondent for recalling PW1-Gurjit Kaur and PW3-Jagtar Singh for crossexamination only on the ground that material questions could not be put to the witnesses when they were earlier cross-examined. A detailed reply was filed to the said application wherein it was stated that the defendantrespondent had cross-examined the witnesses at length and that the application had been filed only to fill-up the lacuna in the case.

6. The application filed by the defendant-respondent is bereft of any reasons as to why and what questions remained to be put to the witnesses. Simply by asserting that some material questions remained, a witness cannot be recalled under the provisions of Order 18 Rule 17 CPC or by exercising the inherent powers of the Court under Section 151 CPC. There is no reason stated in the application or in the impugned order as to why the witnesses need to be re-examined once their cross-examination had thoroughly been conducted by the defendant-respondent. Merely on the ground that no prejudice would be caused to the plaintiff-petitioners the application could not have been allowed. In fact, once the crossexamination had been conducted and after the defendant-respondent had led his evidence, the application for recalling the witnesses of the plaintiff- petitioners for further cross-examination was filed. The said application was nothing but an endeavour to fill-in the lacuna in the evidence led by the defendant-respondent. The application filed by the defendant-respondent is nothing but an abuse of the process of law which cannot be permitted.

7. In view of the above, the present revision petition is allowed and the impugned order dated 08.03.2018 (Annexure P-3) is set aside. The application filed by the defendant-respondent for recalling PW1-Gurjit Kaur and PW3-Jagtar Singh for cross-examination stands dismissed.

8. The parties are directed to appear before the Trial Court on the date already fixed for further proceedings. Nothing mentioned in this order shall have any bearing on the merits of the main suit at the time of it's decision.

9. Pending applications, if any, also stand disposed off.