Telangana High Court
Mr.N.Narasimha Chary vs Sri Alopi Shankar Tiwari Died on 2 February, 2024
Author: P. Sam Koshy
Bench: P. Sam Koshy
THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE P. SAM KOSHY CIVIL REVISION PETITION Nos.3780 and 3782 of 2023 COMMON ORDER:
The grounds raised to challenge the impugned orders in the two Civil Revision Petitions being common, and the facts also being common, they are heard together and decided by this common order.
2. Heard learned counsel for the petitioners and learned counsel for the respondents. Perused the record.
3. For convenience, the facts in Civil Revision Petition No.3780 of 2023 are taken up as the lead case. The parties hereinafter shall be referred to as they are arrayed before the Court below.
4. Civil Revision Petition No.3780 of 2023 has been filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India by the petitioners assailing the impugned order dated 26.09.2023 passed by the Court of the Hon'ble XVIII Additional Senior Civil Judge, City Civil Court, Hyderabad (for short, 'Court below') in I.A.No.174 of 2023, I.A.No.175 of 2023 and I.A.No.176 of 2023 in O.S.No.1753 of 2005.
5. I.A.No.174 of 2023 was filed under Section 45 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 read with Section 151 of CPC seeking for a direction to the defendant No.4 to furnish handwriting samples so ::2::
as to get the same examined before the State Forensic and Central Forensic Laboratories or any other laboratories with the handwriting in the Exhibit A-29 and A-21.
6. I.A.No.174 of 2023 was filed under the same provisions seeking for a direction to the defendant No.4 to provide for a voice sample of his speech to compare with certain conversations that are available with the plaintiffs.
7. Similarly, I.A.No.175 of 2023 was filed again under the same provisions seeking for a direction to the defendant No.4 to provide sample signatures for comparison with the signatures in the Exhibit A-29 and A-21. It is these applications which stand dismissed by the Court below leading to filing of the present Civil Revision Petition.
8. The plaintiffs had filed a Suit for specific performance of agreement of sale and for perpetual injunction in the year 2005. Pending the Suit since the year 2005, the present three I.A's have now been filed for the purposes already reflected in the preceding paragraphs. It was these three I.A's which stands rejected by the Court below vide the said impugned order dated 26.09.2023.
9. Learned counsel for the petitioners submits that the impugned order is bad to the extent that the substantive right of ::3::
the petitioners stands denied so far as proving their case before the Court below.
10. The grounds urged by the learned counsel for the petitioners was that the Court below failed to take into consideration the fact that Exhibit A-29 Sale Deed is of the year 1985 and the receipt and promissory notes already exhibited are of the contemporaneous period of 1984 & 1985 and the request made by the plaintiffs is a comparison of signatures in these two documents by obtaining a full signature of the respondent/defendant No.4 only for confirmation that the signatures are of the same person. The Court below failed to appreciate this fact. The Court below misapplied the rulings in AIR 2005 AP 180 as well as 2019 (14) SCC 220.
11. Further that the Court below ought to have seen that it is the duty of the Court to compare the signatures and come to a conclusion as to whether the signatures are of the same person. The opinion of a handwriting expert is considered as a conclusive proof for such a fact. However it is an accepted principle of law that an expert opinion will assist the Court in analyzing that fact before coming to a conclusion for just and proper conclusion of the issue and hence the Court below ought not to have refused to take services of such useful scientific technology by passing appropriate orders to confirm the truth.
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12. It was also contended that the approach and analysis of the Court below is contrary to law and is not inclined to see valuable evidence and decide the issues in the Suit conclusively in a proper adjudication by not allowing proper evidence to go out of cite of Hon'ble Court.
13. Further the Court below failed to note that the basic quality of all the three aspects of handwriting, signature, and voice remains the same with minor variations and hence can be identified by scientific analysis and even any mimicry can be recognized by the scientific analysis so that the Court below failed to appreciate three aspects and refused to give assistance of technological expertise to establish before the Court conclusively the facts of the case.
14. The contention also was that the Court below failed to see that no prejudice would have been caused to the defendant No.4/DW-1 by sending the signature sample, voice samples, handwriting sample and in fact if the statement of the DW-1 were to be true the truth would have been vindicated and his defense would have been established.
15. Learned counsel for the petitioners in support of his contentions relied upon the following decisions:
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i. Doosi Rama Rao Vs. Puttutu Munirathnam Reddy 1 ii. Chidella Venkateswarlu Vs. Gurram Pushpa Latha 2 iii. Dasari Lingaiah Vs. Thatikonda Venugopal Reddy 3 iv. Mudi Reddy Tirupathi Reddy Vs. T. Linga Reddy and another 4 v. Bande Siva Shankara Srinivas Prasad Vs. Ravi Surya Prakash Babu 5 vi. Shaik Hussain Basha Vs. Shaik Anwar Hussain 6 vii. Aaluri Mogulaiah Vs. Burra Aruna 7 viii. Katike Bheem Shankar Vs. T.Laxmi 8
16. Learned counsel for the respondents on the other hand opposing the Civil Revision Petition submitted that the Suit was filed in the year 2005. At that point of time itself the age of the defendants was quite advanced. Now by way of the handwriting sample, voice sample and signatures, the plaintiffs intends to get a document that was executed of the year 1984 compared with the present day sample. This in other words means that the petitioners seeks to compare the present age signature, the voice sample and the handwriting of the petitioners with a document that was executed almost forty (40) years back and with which the 1 CDJ 2023 APHC 651 2 2012 (4) ALT 45 3 2015 (5) 492 4 2015 (6) ALT 512 5 2016 (2) ALT 248 6 CDJ 2020 APHC 367 7 2012 (2) ALT 19 8 2023 (3) ALT 437 ::6::
petitioners seeks to prove their case, which at this stage after so long a period should not be permitted.
17. It was also the contention of the learned counsel for the respondents that the three I.A's have already been moved at a much belated stage where substantial evidences have already been recorded. Therefore, it should not be permitted at this juncture and that the intention of filing of the said I.A's was to protract the proceedings. For all the aforesaid reasons, the learned counsel for the respondents prayed for rejection of the Civil Revision Petition.
18. Having heard the contentions put forth on either side and on perusal of records, what is paramount at this juncture, is to take note of the fact that the present Civil Revision Petition is filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India and the scope of judicial review under Article 227 to an order passed by the Court below is to minimal. It is settled position of law that while exercising the power under Article 227, the High Court has to particularly consider as to whether there is any jurisdictional error committed by the Court below in the course of deciding the case.
Secondly, it needs to be considered whether there is any perversity in the findings given by the Court below and lastly, whether there is any excess of jurisdiction on the part of the Court below while ::7::
passing the impugned order. In the instant case, the petitioners have not assailed the impugned order on any of these grounds.
19. The contention of the learned counsel for the petitioners is that the samples of the handwriting, voice as also the signatures are most essential for proving their case. But what needs to be appreciated is the fact that there is a huge gap of time that has passed for the purpose of comparison of the present handwriting, voice as also the signatures of the defendants with the documents that were executed almost forty (40) years back in 1984. In the said context, if the Court below has reached to the conclusion that the said reliefs sought for is at much belated stage and with huge gap between the two periods i.e. the time at which the documents were executed and the present time and age of the defendants, it is not justified for the plaintiffs to have moved such I.A's at this juncture with the aforesaid reliefs. The findings given by the Court below while rejecting the three I.A's on the plain reading itself is quite convincing and justified.
20. Another aspect which needs to be looked into is the fact that the document which needs to be established were that of the year 1984-85. The Suit was filed in the year 2005 i.e. after twenty (20) years and the I.A's have been filed in the year 2023 i.e. after fourteen (14) years. Many changes must have definitely happened by efflux of time on the physical conditions so far as the ::8::
defendants are concerned. If that is borne in mind, the findings of the Court below cannot be found fault with.
21. The judgments which have been relied upon by the learned counsel for the petitioners have all been decided in an entirely different contextual backdrop, unlike in the present case.
Therefore, they are quite distinguishable on facts itself.
22. In view of the aforesaid factual backdrop of the case, this Court does not find any illegality on the part of the Court below while deciding the three I.A's. Accordingly, the two Civil Revision Petitions therefore being devoid of merits, deserves to be and are accordingly, rejected. No order as to costs.
Consequently, miscellaneous petitions pending if any, shall stand closed.
__________________ P. SAM KOSHY, J Date: 02.02.2024 GSD