IMPORTANT POINTS
The precondition for presumption u/s 90, Evidence Act is that the document must purport and be proved to be 30 years old. Date on which the document is tendered in evidence or subjected to being proved/exhibited is the relevant date from which its antiquity is to be computed.
Period of 30 years cannot be relaxed by Courts.
Presumption u/s 90 is discretionary.
Even a registered document can be challenged and it cannot automatically be received in evidence in curial proceedings.

JUDGMENT

VIKRAMAJIT SEN, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. The Appellant before us was the Defendant in a suit filed by the Respondent-Plaintiff praying for a decree of mandatory injunction directing the Appellant to hand over vacant possession of the property in dispute, on the predication that the Respondent was the owner of that property. The Appellant has been successively unsuccessful in the three Courts below, viz., the Trial Court, where Respondent’s suit for mandatory injunction was decreed against the Appellant; the First Appellate Court, which dismissed Appellant’s First Appeal; and the High Court of Punjab & Haryana, which dismissed the Appellant’s Second Appeal.

3. Outlining the facts briefly, the Respondent-Plaintiff’s case before the Trial Court was that he was the owner-allottee of the property and had parted with possession of the property to the Appellant on a nominal licence basis. The parties are closely related to each other – being brothers-in-law since the Appellant/Defendant was the husband of the Plaintiff’s sister. The Plaintiff pleaded that it had been agreed between them that as and when required by the Plaintiff the Appellant would vacate the property. However, despite the Plaintiff’s repeated requests the Appellant did not accede thereto; accordingly, the aforesaid suit came to be filed. Whilst admitting that he had initially been a licencee of the Respondent, the Appellant pleaded in his Written Statement that on 15.05.1970 the Respondent had executed a Gift Deed in his favour, thereby making him the owner of the property. The Appellant/Defendant also claimed that the Gift Deed had been registered in and by the Office of the Sub Registrar, Patiala, on 18.05.1970. In Replication, the Respondent-Plaintiff has denied execution of the Gift Deed saying that because of close relationship the Defendant may have obtained his signatures by misrepresentations, essentially admitting his signature on that document.

4. Concurrent findings of the Trial Court and the Appellate Court are to the effect that the Gift Deed had not been proved under Sections 68 and 69 of the Evidence Act; the evidence that had been led was found wanting as regards proof of execution of the Gift Deed. The High Court dismissed the Second Appeal finding no substantial question of law before it and no justification for interference with the findings of facts by the Courts below.

5. For facility of reference the relevant Sections of the Evidence Act are reproduced:

“68. Proof of execution of document required by law to be attested.—If a document is required by law to be attested, it shall not be used as evidence until one attesting witness at least has been called for the purpose of proving its execution, if there be an attesting witness alive, and subject to the process of the Court and capable of giving evidence:

Provided that it shall not be necessary to call an attesting witness in proof of the execution of any document, not being a Will, which has been registered in accordance with the provisions of the Indian Registration Act, 1908 (16 of 1908), unless its execution by the person by whom it purports to have been executed is specifically denied.

69. Proof where no attesting witness found.—If no such attesting witness can be found, or if the document purports to have been executed in the United Kingdom, it must be proved that the attestation of one attesting witness at least is in his handwriting, and that the signature of the person executing the document is in the handwriting of that person.

90. Presumption as to documents thirty years old.— Where any document, purporting or proved to be thirty years old, is produced from any custody which the Court in the particular case considers proper, the Court may presume that the signature and every other part of such document, which purports to be in the handwriting of any particular person, is in that person’s handwriting, and, in the case of a document executed or attested, that it was duly executed