JUDGMENT

Rajbir Sehrawat, J. (Oral)

The petitioner has filed this civil revision under Article 227 of the Constitution of India praying for setting aside of order dated 01.05.2014 (Annexure P-3) passed by the Civil Judge (Senior Division), Gurgaon, whereby the application filed by the petitioner for impounding the Lease Deed for affixation of improper Stamp Fee and the application for de-exhibiting the Leas Deed (Annexure P-2), have been dismissed; along with certain other prayers.

2. The brief facts of this case are that the respondent-plaintiff filed a suit for recovery against the petitioner; for an amount of Rs. 52,46,413/-. That amount was stated to be rent of leased premises, created through lease dated 16.04.2007. During the evidence the plaintiff tendered the said lease deed in evidence. The said lease deed was marked as Exhibit P-4. Although, the objection was raised qua documents, including the lease deed, however, the objection was kept open by the trial court. Thereafter the evidence of the plaintiff was closed on 04.04.2013. The evidence of the defendant was started. The defendant was granted as many as nine opportunities to lead its evidence. However, no evidence had been led by the defendant in the suit. At the fag end of the trial the defendant moved an application under Order 7, Rule 11 for rejection of the plaint. However, the same was dismissed vide order dated 11.02.2014. Thereafter, two separate applications were moved by the defendant, one for de-exhibiting the lease deed in question and another for impounding the document, as such. However, the trial Court has dismissed both the aforesaid applications. Hence, the present petition has been filed by the petitioner.

3. Arguing the case learned counsel for the petitioner submits that since the objection was raised qua admissibility of the documents, therefore, the document being insufficiently stamped, the court was under duty to impound the same under provisions of Section 33 read with Section 35 of the Indian STAMP ACT , 1899 (in short, the ' STAMP ACT '). Since the document was liable to be impounded, therefore, the same could not have been admitted in evidence, nor could the same be read into evidence in terms of the provisions of law contained in the aforesaid Sections. The counsel has submitted that due objection was raised when the document was tendered. However, the same was kept open by the trial court. The trial Court was under a duty to decide the objection immediately on being raised. Moreover, the trial court has even recorded the observation that even the insufficiently stamped document could be read into evidence for collateral purposes. However, if the document is not even admissible in evidence then the same cannot be at all considered by court for any purpose. The counsel has relied upon the judgments rendered by the Supreme Court in the cases of Ram Rattan (dead) by L.Rs. v. Bajrang Lal & Others , (1978) 3 SCC 236 and Avinash Kumar Chauhati v. Vijay Krishna Mishra , 2009(2) SCC 532 . Hence, it is submitted that the trial court has wrongly dismissed the application filed by the petitioner.

4. On the other hand, the counsel for the respondent has submitted that the objection taken by the petitioner qua exhibition of the documents, as recorded in the proceedings of the trial court, was general in nature. No specific objection was raised by the petitioner at the time of the execution of the above said lease deed, specifically on account of insufficiency of stamp duty paid for lease deed. In any case, the objection can be decided