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IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH, SHIMLA

CMPMO No.773/2025

Date of Decision: 24th December, 2025.

Ram Lal .....Petitioner P

Versus

Radha Swami Satsang Beas ...Respondent

Coram

The Hon’ble Mr. Justice Bipin Chander Negi, Judge.

Whether approved for reporting?1

For the Petitioner: Ms. Devyani Sharma,f Sr. Advocate with

Mr. Anirudh Sharma, Advocate.

For the Respondent: Mr. Lalit Kumar Sehgal, Advocate.

Bipin Chander Negi, Judge (oral).

The present petition has been preferred against the

impugned order dated 21.11.2025, passed by the learned

Senior Civil Judge Court No.1, Paonta Sahib, District

Sirmaur, HP, whereby the present respondent/plaintiff has

been perm itted to lead rebuttal evidence, in order to prove

the authorization letter issued in favour of one Sh. Amar

Singh, authorizing him to file the plaint in the case at hand

on behalf of the present respondent/plaintiff.

2. Heard counsel for the petitioner and perused the

impugned order and the documents appended along with

the present petition.

3. Issues in the case at hand have been placed on

record as Annexure P-3 (placed at page 27 of the paper

book). For the purpose of the present petition, Issue No.3,

1 Whether reporters of Local Papers may be allowed to see the judgment? Yes

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which pertain to the maintainability of the suit filed by the

respondent is relevant. The same reads as follows:- .

“Issue No.3 Whether the suit is not

maintainable? OPD.”

4. The onus of proving the same at the trial lay upon

the petitioner/defendant, as is evident fro m the issues

framed qua the same.

5. Order XVIII Rule 3 CPC is a specific provision

dealing with the manner in which evidence is to be

examined by the parties. Fuor ready reference this provision

is extracted hereinbelow:-

"3. Evidence where several issues.-- Where there

are several issues, the burden of proving some of which

lies on the other party, the party beginning may, at his

hoption, either produce his evidence on those issues or

reserve it by way of answer to the evidence produced

by the other party; and, in the latter case, the party

i beginning may produce evidence on those issues after

the other party has produced all his evidence, and the

other party may then reply specially on the evidence so

produced by the party beginning; but the party

beginning will then be entitled to reply generally on the

whole case."

6. The same has been interpreted in the following

manner in AIR 2011 Himachal Pradesh 39, titled

Neelam Rai Vs. Surjit Kumar and Ors. (CMPMO No.467

of 2010). The relevant extract is reproduced herein below:-

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“15. It would be pertinent to deal with the phrase

relied upon by the respondent that the “party beginning

will be entitled to reply generally on the whole case.” In

case Order 18, Rule 3 of the CPC is read as a whole, it is

obvious that when several issues are framed norm.ally it

would be the plaintiff who would lead evidence if onus

to prove certain factual issues has been placed on the

plaintiff. Therefore, instead of the word ‘party beginning’

I am reading in this sub rule the word ‘plaintiff’ and

instead of the word ‘other party’, the word ‘defendant’.

Therefore, where there are several issues, onus to

prove some of which is on the plaintiffs and of some on

the defendants and the plaintiff leads evidence only on

the issues, the onus to prove which is on him, then he

can reserve hios right to lead rebuttal evidence on the

issues, onus to prove which is on the defendant.

Thereafter, the defendant would be required to lead

evidence on all issues and then the plaintiff would have

hthe right to lead evidence in rebuttal only on those

issues, the onus to prove which was on the defendant.

This is obvious from the words used in this rule that in

the latter case the party beginning may produce

H evidence on those issues after the other party has

produced its own evidence. It is only when the

defendant is again given a right to lead evidence either

by way of additional