The admissibility of documents in civil proceedings must be determined judicially, particularly concerning compliance with stamp duty requirements under the Indian Stamp Act.

ORDER :

1. Aggrieved by the docket order dated 29.02.2024 in O.S.No. 81 of 2022 (hereinafter will be referred as ‘impugned order’) passed by the learned Senior Civil Judge, Kalwakurthy (hereinafter will be referred as ‘Trial Court’), the defendants have preferred the present Civil Revision Petition to set aside the impugned order.

2. For the sake of convenience, the parties hereinafter are referred to as they are arrayed before the Trial Court.

3. The brief facts of the case, which necessitated the revision petitioners to file the present revision, are that the plaintiffs have filed a suit for specific performance of agreement of sale, dated 14.05.2008 against the defendants. During the course of trial, the plaintiff got examined as PW1 and got marked Exs.A1 to A7. While marking a document i.e., declaration cum receipt, the counsel for the defendants have raised an objection that the said declaration cum receipt cannot be marked as it requires stamp duty and penalty to that effect and that the plaintiffs have created the said document. The trial Court has passed the impugned docket order dated 29.02.2024 marking the said document as Ex.A8 on behalf of plaintiffs. Aggrieved by the same, the defendants have filed the present Civil Revision Petition to set aside the impugned document order.

4. Heard both sides and perused the record including the grounds of revision.

5. The contention of the defendants is that the learned trial Court without referring the written arguments filed by the defendants in a proper perspective and erroneously construed the disputed document dated 10.03.2017 as declaration cum receipt and also proposed to mark the document as Ex.A8 in the suit filed by the plaintiffs for specific performance. It is further contended that learned trial Court ought to have appreciated that the suit for specific performance was filed in March, 2020 based on alleged agreement of sale dated 14.05.2008 i.e., after twelve years from the date of alleged agreement of sale. It is to be seen that the limited issue involved in this revision is whether the alleged declaration cum receipt, which was proposed to be marked as Ex.A8 before the trial Court, can be permitted or not. The trial Court has passed a lengthy docket order, which forms part of the submissions made by both the parties before the trial Court. As can be seen from the first paragraph of the impugned docket order, it is very clear that the learned counsel for the defendants have raised several objections to mark the alleged declaration cum receipt as one of the documents. Thus, whenever objections are raised by either of the parties while marking a document or proposing to mark a document, a duty is cast on the learned trial Court Judge to mark the said document subject to objection until and unless such objections are unsustainable.

6. Admission of a document in evidence is different from proof of its contents. Order XIII Rules 32 and 43 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 provide rules for admission or rejection of documents. The Court may at any stage of the case reject any document which it considers irrelevant or otherwise inadmissible, recording the grounds of such rejection. While reading the record, the parties and the court should be able to know as to which document was placed before the witness while he/she is deposing. Absence of putting an endorsement for the purpose of identification no sooner a document is placed before a witness would cause serious confusion as one would be left simply guessing or wondering which was the document to which the witness was referring to which he is deposing. Endorsement of an exhibit number on a document has no relation with its proof. Neither the marking of an exhibit number can be postponed till the document has been held proved; nor can the document be held to have been proved merely because it has been marked as an exhibit.

7. Where a question as to the admissibility of a document is raised on the ground that it has not bee