JUDGMENT

Din Mohammad, J. - There are five appeals before us, viz. Civil Appeals Nos. 1544 and 1545 of 1932, and Civil Appeals Nos. 1081, 1082 and 1083 of 1933. They have arisen out of five suits, brought by the proprietors of five villages, namely Pind, Ahmadal, Utran Maghian and Jangla, respectively, against Khan Bahadur Nawab Gulam Mohammad Khan and others, popularly known as the Maliks of Pindigheb. In each case the proprietors claimed full ownership of the lands in their possession and denied the status of ala maliks claimed by the defendants in relation to them. The Pind and Ahmadal suits were instituted in the month of April 1932, while the Utran, Maghian and Jangla suits were instituted after the decision of the first two suits. The former two suits were decreed in favour of the proprietors and in those cases the defendants have lodged Appeals Nos. 1544, and 1545 of 1932. The latter three suits were dismissed and in those cases the plaintiffs have lodged Appeals Nos. 1081, 1082 and 1083 of 1933.

2. The main point for determination in all the five appeals is common, but in the interests of clarity and precision we have considered it proper to dispose of Civil Appeals Nos. 1544 and 1545 of 1932 in the earlier part of this judgment leaving the other three appeals to be dealt with later, as the subsidiary points raised by the defendant in the first set of appeals have not been raised in the second set, and the evidence relied on by the defendants in the second set of appeals was not adduced in the previous suits and could not, therefore, be referred to in their decision. Civil Appeals Nos. 1544 and 1545, as stated above, relate, to the, villages Pind and Ahmadal respectively. In these cases, counsel for the appellants has applied at the outset that he may be allowed under Order 41, Rule 27, Civil P.C., to pro-duce certain documents which he did not produce before, as he could not obtain them during the pendency of the proceedings in the trial Court. We have, however, decided not to allow this request. In the first place, as discussed in the connected appeals, the documents intended to be produced, consisting of mere opinions expressed in Secretariat correspondence which passed between various officers of the Government who had held no personal inquiries in the matter, are inadmissible in evidence. Secondly, even if they were admissible, we are not prepared to let them in at this stage. The affidavit put in by the1 appellants' agent is couched in very vague terms and does not mention when the copies were obtained and why they could not be had before. Besides, Rule 27 of Order 41, Civil P.C., has been quite recently interpreted by their Lordships of the Privy Council in Parsotim Thakur v. Lal Mohar 1931 PC 143, and to allow this application will amount to a complete disregard of both the letter and the spirit of the law as enunciated therein. At p. 668 of the Report their (Lordships observed as follows:

Under O, 41, Rule 27 (1)(b), it is only where the appellate Court "requires" it (f. e. finds it needful) that additional evidence can be admitted. It may be required to enable the Court to pronounce judgment or for any other substantial cause, but in either case it must be the Court that requires it. This is the plain grammatical reading of the sub-clause. The legitimate occasion for the exercise of this discretion is not, whenever before the appeal is heard, a party applies to adduce fresh evidence, but when on examining the evidence as it stands,' some inherent lacuna or defect becomes 'apparent'. This is laid down in the most positive terms by Lord Robertson in Kessowji Issur v. G I P Ry. (1907) 31 Bom 381. It may wall be that the defect may be pointed out by a party, or that a party may move the Court to supply the defect, but the requirement must be the requirement of the Court upon its appreciation of the evidence as it stands.

3. We do not feel any inherent lacuna in the case, nor do we require these documents to be produc