( 1 ) THE facts of the case which led to the reference to this Full Bench, briefly stated, are these.

( 2 ) AJODHYA Prasad Bhargava, defendant appellant, entered into an agreement with a joint Hindu family of which Ram Das was the karta and which owned a business concern known as H. Bevis and Co. , for the advance of certain monies to the latter. Under the agreement Ajodhya Prasad Bhargava was to receive interest on the sum advanced and was to have the control and management of the concern, H. Bevis and Co. Ajodhya Prasad bhargava did not possess sufficient funds to enable him to discharge the obligations under the agreement and he, therefore, approached the plaintiff-respondent Bhawani Shanker Bhargaya, a relation, for investing some money in the business of H. Bevis and Co. The resdondent paid a certain sum either to the appellant, or at his suggestion, to Messrs. H. Bevis and Co. For the recovery of the money remaining due to the respondent he instituted the suit which has given ri?e to this sppeal on the allegation that the money advanced by him was a loan to the appellant. The proprietors of the concern H. Bevis and Co. were also impleaded as pro forma defendants.

( 3 ) THE appellant and Messrs. H. Bevis and Co. , contested the suit. H. Bevis and Co. s plea was that there was no privity of contract between them and the respondent and consequently there was no liability on them to makeany payment to him. The appellants plea was that he had never borrowed money from the respondent, that the latter was taken as a partner in the investment and that the liability to pay rested with H. Bevis and Co.

( 4 ) IN support of this case that the advances made by the respondent were not loans to him but were loans to Messrs H. Beyis and Co. , the appellant produced certain letters written by the respon- dent as containing admissions by the respondent in support of the appellants case. These letters were produced in Court by the appellant before the hearing commenced and were shown to the counsel for the respondent for admission or dental. The counsel for the respondent admitted them and they were thus exhibited by the Court as evidence (sic ). But when, later on, the respondent appeared in the witness-box these admissions were not put to him in cross-examination.

( 5 ) AT the time of arguments when it was attempted to utilise these letters as containing admissions of the respondent contrary to what he had stated on oath in the witness-box, the learned Civil Judge relying upon the Fnvy Council decision in Bal Gangadhar Tilak v. Shri niwas Pandit, AIR 1915 PC 7 (A) and the Pull Bench case Malik Desraj Faqirchand v. Firm piara Lal Aya Ram, AIR 1945 Lah 65 (B) ruled these documents as inadmissible under Section 145, Evidence Act. The Civil Judge decreed the suit against the appellant and dismissed it as against Messrs. H. Bevis and Co.

( 6 ) THE appellant appealed to this Court against the decree of the Civil Judge and urged that the aforesaid letters containing the admissions of the respondent were admissible in evidence and could be relied upon by him as substantive evidence in the case and as disproving the statements on oath of the respondent. The Bench hearing the appeal, considering that there was a conflict of judicial opinion on the point, referred the following two questions for decision by a Pull Bench :

(1) Where in a civil suit a party produces documents containing admissions by his opponent, which documents are admitted by the opponents counsel, and the opponent enters the witness-box is it obligatory on the party who produced those documents to draw in cross-examination the attention of the opponent to the said admissions before he can be permitted to use them for the purpose of contradicting the opponent?

(2) Can the party producing these documents be permitted under Section 21, Evidence Act, to use them as substantive evidence in the case without drawing in cross-examination the attention of the opponent to those