The court affirmed that admissibility of municipal documents does not guarantee their probative value; the burden is on the landlord to prove applicable exemptions for eviction under rent control legislation.

JUDGMENT :

Ajit Kumar, J.

1. Heard Sri Krishna Mohan Garg, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Ashish Agarwal, learned counsel for the respondents.

2. Petitioner, who is tenant of the demised premises situate in a commercial complex owned by the landlord/ respondent, is aggrieved by the judgement and decree passed by the Judge, Small Causes dated 12.02.2019 in S.C.C. Case No. 56of 2007 decreeing the suit for his eviction and further payment of arrears of rent and mesne profits. This petition is also directed against the order passed in revision dated 25.11.2021 affirming the judgment and decree passed by the Judge, Small Causes as well as the order dated 24.02.2021, whereby, an application filed under Section 41 Rule 27 C.P.C. came to be allowed permitting the petitioner to file another municipal assessment receipt.

3. The sheet anchor of the arguments advanced by Sri Garg, learned counsel for the petitioner is that since the copy of the assessment register qua the shop in question was an improvement upon an already led evidence and that could not have been permitted to be led and it showed that to be an effort to create evidence and further it being within the knowledge could have been led earlier even.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that in view of the provisions as contained under Sections 141 to 149 of the MUNICIPALITIES ACT , 2016 read with Section 330 thereof, it can easily be concluded that there are certain prescribed documents, copies whereof can be issued and, therefore, the Executive officer of the municipality had no power to certify that first assessment of the building in question had been made in a particular year.

5. He further submitted that even for the argument's sake if it is accepted that the certificate issued by an authorized officer of municipality had a prima facie presumptive value but its probative value was of course questionable, more so in the circumstances when the papers of the building in question earlier filed did not mention the year of assessment. He further submitted that serious objections since were raised regarding probative value of the certificate as well as its evidentiary value but all these aspects as argued before the trial court as well as court sitting in revision, have not been dealt with in its discussion part to justify the findings that have been arrived at by the courts below.

6. The judgment relied upon in support of the above argument is of Joseph John Peter Sandy v. Veronica Thomas Rajkumar and another , (2013) 3 SCC 801 . Paragraph nos. 19 and 20 of the judgment have been placed before the Court that run as under:

"19. In State of Bihar v. Radha Krishna Singh, (1983) 3 SCC 118 : AIR 1983 SC 684, this Court held as under:

“40. ... Admissibility of a document is one thing and its probative value quite another - these two aspects cannot be combined. A document may be admissible and yet may not carry any conviction and weight of its probative value may be nil....

53. ...Where a report is given by a responsible officer, which is based on evidence of witnesses and documents and has "a statutory flavour in that it is given not merely by an administrative officer but under the authority of a Statute, its probative value would indeed be very high so as to be entitled to great weight.

145. (4) The probative value of documents which, however ancient they may be, do not disclose sources of their information or have not achieved sufficient notoriety is precious little.”

20. Reiterating the above proposition in Madan Mohan Singh v. Rajni Kant, (2010) 9 SCC 209 : AIR 2010 SC 2933, this Court held that:

"18. ... a document may be admissible, but a