The main legal point established in the judgment is the requirement for substantial cause and correlation with the case put forth by the plaintiff in accepting additional evidence at the appellate stage.

Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya, J.

Heard Shri I.M. Pandey, learned counsel for the petitioner and Shri S.P. Mishra, learned counsel appearing for respondents no.2 to 7.

2. A short counter affidavit has been filed on behalf of respondents no.2 to 7, the same is taken on record.

3. The petitioner instituted a suit for permanent injunction in the year 2006 which was dismissed by the learned trial court by means of the judgment dated 28.03.2011. Challenging the said judgment dated 28.03.2011, passed by the learned trial court, a Regular Civil Appeal has been preferred by the petitioner plaintiff which is pending before the learned appellate court. During the pendency of the appeal, two applications were moved by the petitioner; (1) application dated 23.04.2014 praying therein that the plaintiff intends to file certain additional evidence in the form of certain documents which may be taken on record and (2) an application praying therein that the appellant-plaintiff be permitted to cross-examine the defendant. Both the applications have been rejected by the learned appellate court by means of the impugned order dated 24.04.2014. It is this order dated 24.04.2014, passed by the learned appellate court below which is subject matter of challenge in these proceedings instituted by the petitioner under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

4. Submission of learned counsel for the petitioner is that the learned appellate court below has wrongly rejected both the applications without taking into consideration the relevant provisions contained in Order 41, Rule 27 of the Code of Civil Procedure. He has emphasised that the learned court below has not returned any finding as to the relevance of the documents which were sought to be produced by the plaintiff as additional evidence and hence in absence of such a finding the order passed by the appellate court cannot be permitted to be sustained.

5. Learned counsel for the petitioner has stated that the documents which were sought to be produced are directly related and are relevant to the case put forth by the plaintiff before the learned trial court. It has also been stated that the petitioner is an illiterate villager and the documents which were sought to be relied upon by filing them as additional evidence were not in his custody and further that copies of the certain documents available in the record room of the Collectorate are in Urdu language and that the petitioner could get copies of some documents only after a direction was issued by this Court by means of the order dated 18.02.2014, passed in Writ Petition No.1334 (M/B) of 2014. He has thus stated that the petitioner had established "substantial cause" for taking the additional documents on record, however, the learned appellate court has erred in rejecting the said application.

6. It has also been argued by learned counsel for the petitioner that the opportunity to cross-examine the defendant was wrongly closed by the learned trial court and the learned appellate court having not discussed this aspect of the matter has erred in law in rejecting the application for recalling the defendant as witness.

7. On the other hand, learned counsel appearing for respondents no.2 to 7 has vehemently opposed the writ petition stating therein that none of the conditions precedent for invoking the provisions of Order 41, Rule 27 of the CPC are fulfilled in this case and hence the order passed by the learned appellate court rejecting both the applications moved by the petitioner-plaintiff does not call for any interference by this Court in this writ petition.

8. Learned counsel for the respondents has also stated that the application moved by the petitioner dated 23.04.2014 for production of additional evidence is cryptic and does not disclose any fact which can be co-related with their relevance to the case put forth by the plaintiff before the learned trial court in the suit. He has also stated that no reason has been disclosed by the plaintiff-