The court has the power under section 151 CPC to allow additional evidence to be brought on record, with caution and care, to meet the ends of justice, even if there is no specific provision in the CPC for bringing any document as additional evidence subsequently.

JUDGMENT :

SIDDHARTHA VARMA, J.

1. The respondent-plaintiff filed a suit being Suit No. 848 of 2002 for declaration and also for a permanent injunction praying that the suit property situate at 142, Jattiwara, Meerut be declared as the property of the plaintiff and also the defendant be restrained by a permanent injunction from causing any interference in the peaceful possession and occupation of the property 142, Jattiwara, Meerut. The claim was set up by stating that the husband of the plaintiff-respondent namely late Surendra Dayal, who had expired on 17.6.2002, had bequeathed the property in question by a will dated 19.5.2002. A further allegation was there in the plaint that the father of the deceased-husband of the plaintiff late Sri Shiv Dayal had willed his self-earned property on 29.4.1974 to the deceased-husband of the plaintiff. The suit was filed sometime in the year 2002 and thereafter the petitioner-defendant Colonel Mukul Dev filed a written statement on 18.6.2002. Thereafter issues were struck and the parties submitted their affidavits by way of examination-in-chief. The plaintiff and the defendant were put to cross- examination and before the settlement of the issues and at the time of filing of the suit, all relevant documents, which were to be relied upon by the parties as documentary evidence in original, were also filed. After the cross-examination of the plaintiff who was produced as PW-1 and the cross-examination of PW-2 Smt. Payal Agarwal, the daughter of the plaintiff was concluded on 19.7.2018, the evidence viz-a-viz the plaintiff was closed. The defendant, after the production of his affidavit as examination-in-chief on 17.9.2018 was put to cross-examination with effect from 5.11.2018. While the evidence of the defendant-petitioner was being adduced in the cross-examination, the plaintiff filed an application no. 155-C on 22.2.2019 and sought permission to file certain fresh documents as evidence. The documents which were to be filed were around 9 in number. The defendant-petitioner objected to the filing of fresh evidence on 25.2.2019. However, when the Trial Court by its order dated 26.2.2019 permitted the plaintiff-respondent to bring on record some of the documents which she had prayed for being brought on record then the instant writ petition was filed.

2. From the perusal of the order impugned, it appears that Paper Nos. 164-Ka to 166-Ga, which were sought to be brought in as additional evidence were refused but the other papers were admitted in evidence.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner has assailed the order by stating that when the evidence viz-a-viz the plaintiff had been closed then without recalling the order by which the plaintiff's evidence was closed, the Trial Court could not have admitted in evidence/further documents. The additional documents which were sought to be brought in as additional evidence could not have been allowed to be filed. Learned counsel for the petitioner further submitted that when there was no law to permit the adducing of evidence by the plaintiff after the evidence of the defendant-petitioner had commenced then the additional evidence could not have been allowed to be brought on record. Learned counsel assailed the order by stating that the Trial Court had not given any reason as to why the additional evidence had been brought on record. Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that bringing on record documents by way of additional evidence was a dilatory tactics which was being adopted by the plaintiff. Learned counsel for the petitioner relied upon Order VII Rule 14 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (hereinafter referred to as the “CPC”) and submitted that at the time of the filing of the suit, the documents, which were to be relied upon and which were in the possession of the plaintiff, should have been entered in the list which had accompanied the plaint and those documents should have been produced in the Court when the plaint was presented by the