ORDER
1. This Civil Revision Petition is directed against the order dated 22-7-2003 made in LA. No. 476 of 2003 in O.S. No. 720 of 2001 by the learned I Additional Junior Civil Judge, Visakhapatnam.
2. The learned Trial Judge partly allowed the application filed by the petitioner herein under Order VIII Rule 1(3) of the Code of Civil Procedure (for short 'the Code') to receive certain documents. The learned Trial Judge having allowed the application in part received documents 1 to 3, 5 and 9 only on payment of costs of Rs. 50/- to the other side. The learned Trial Judge did not receive the documents 4 and 6 to 8 on the ground that some of them are not admissible in evidence and some are merely Xerox copies.
3. In this civil revision petition, the learned Counsel for the petitioner, Sri P. Satyanarayana, contended that the learned Judge committed an error in deciding the question as to the admissibility of the documents even at the threshold stage and the same is impermissible, in law. The learned Counsel contended that while considering the application to receive the documents, the Trial Court is required to see as to whether sufficient cause is shown for the delay in filing and bringing those documents on record, but it cannot decide about the admissibility or otherwise of such documents. The said question is required to be considered at subsequent stage for which purpose both parties shall have an opportunity to project their contentions as regards the relevancy and admissibility of the documents.
4. The learned Counsel for the respondent, Sri S. V.R, Subrahmanyam, however, contended that the petitioner-defendant filed the present application only in order to delay and protract the proceedings. The learned Counsel further contended that the Court's jurisdiction to consider as to whether the documents that are sought to be filed into the Court are relevant and admissible, in no manner, gets effected and the same can be gone into by the Court at any stage of the proceedings.
5. I have given my anxious consideration to the rival submissions made during the course of hearing of this Civil Revision Petition.
6. This Court in N. Narayana Reddy v. G.R. Subba Reddy, : 2000(1)ALT69 and Aravapalli Sriranganayakulu v. Godavarthi Leelavathi, : 2001(3)ALD516 , held that under Order 13, Rule 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the Court can direct the reception of the documents at any subsequent stage of the proceedings upon good cause being shown to the satisfaction of the Court for the non-production thereof earlier by assigning the reasons for doing so. Rule 3 of Order 13 of the Code of Civil Procedure, however, is a different provision under which the Court may reject any document, which it considers irrelevant or otherwise inadmissible by recording the grounds for such rejection. Although it is said in the said rule that at any stage the Court may do so but on a holistic consideration of the provisions under Order 13 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The stage envisaged under Rule 3 is certainly not a stage at which the Court is expected to consider the good cause for the non-production of the documents earlier. The order directing the reception of the documents is entirely different from the order admitting the documents in evidence. The documents would be allowed to be accepted when the three other requirements are satisfied, namely, (i) the relevancy; (ii) the admissibility; and (iii) proof. Thus, those three requirements are not at the stage when the documents are sought to be produced before the Court, but at a later stage by showing good cause for non-production of the same earlier at the relevant time.
7. No doubt, the said decisions were rendered interpreting Order XIII Rule (2) of the Code, which has been omitted and substituted by Act 46 of 1999 with effect from 1-7-2002. But, as at present, Order VIII Rule 1A (3) of the Code provides that a document which ought to be produced in Court by the defendant, but, is not so produced shall not, without the leave of the Court, be received in evidence on his behalf at the hearing of the suit. This discretion is conferred upon the Court to receive the document in evidence even at the hearing of the suit, provided leave is granted by the Court to receive the documents even at the hearing of the suit, though such documents were required to be produced in the Court by the defendant along with the presentation of written statement and before hearing of the suit.
.8. In the instant case, the Trial Court found that good cause is shown and accordingly granted leave to the petitioner-defendant to file those documents, but some of the documents are not received on the ground that they are not admissible in evidence.
9. It is required to notice that Rule 3 of Order XIII of the Code, which enables the Court, at any stage of the suit, to reject any document which it considers irrelevant or otherwise inadmissible, recording the grounds of such rejection, continues to be there in the Code. Rule 4 provides the procedure for making endorsement on the document admitted in evidence. Thus the Court's power to reject the irrelevant and inadmissible documents continues to be there as it was prior to the amendments referred to hereinabove. It is, therefore, clear that the question of admissibility and relevancy of the documents can be gone into by the Court not at the stage of granting leave to the defendant to produce the documents but at the stage of hearing of the suit, which otherwise are required to be filed into Court along with the written statement. The Court, obviously, at that stage, cannot go into the admissibility and relevancy of the documents.
10. For the aforesaid reasons, the impugned order passed by the learned Judge refuising to receive documents 4 and 6 to 8 is set aside. The learned Judge shall receive those documents also and proceed to consider their relevancy and admissibility in evidence in accordance with law, for which purposes, the respondent-plaintiff shall be entitled to raise her objections, which are required to be considered by the Trial Court.
11. The Trial Court is directed to dispose of the suit itself within a period of four months from the date of receipt of a copy of this order in view of the fact that the respondent-plaintiff is a senior citizen, aged about 85 years.
12. The civil revision petition is accordingly allowed. No order as to costs.