Kanwarjitsingh R. Chadha Vs. Sahebrao Gajanan Salve and Others - Court Judgment

Oral Judgment:

1. Rule. Rule returnable forthwith. By consent of the parties, Rule called out and heard finally at the admission stage.

2. This petition challenges the order dated 12.9.2012 passed by the learned 6th Joint Civil Judge, Junior Division, Nashik. The petitioner is the original defendant No.1. The plaintiff has filed the suit for partition, possession and also challenged the sale deed executed in favour of Defendant No.1 i.e., the petitioner. In the course of evidence, the defendant has moved application for taking secondary evidence i.e., attested copy of the will on record. The trial Court has allowed the secondary evidence, however, subject to execution of the said will being proved as per section 68 of the Evidence Act.

3. The learned Counsel for the petitioner submits that the learned trial Court ought to have exhibited the will as it is admitted by the plaintiff in the averments. It is submitted in para 3 of the plaint that the plaintiff has averred that the deceased Gajanan Sambhaji Salve has made will dated 9.3.1993 in respect of the suit land and has admitted that a particular portion of the land had fallen to the share of Respondent No.2 – Laxmibai Gajanan Salve from whom the defendant No.1 has purchased the property. He further submitted that in the affidavit in lieu of examination in chief also, the same fact is reiterated. Thus, in view of this admission, the trial Court ought to have exhibited the said document as the contents in the document are proved. The learned counsel in support of his submission relied on the ruling in the case of ThayyulllathilKunhikannan and Ors. vs. Thayyullathil Kalliani and Ors (AIR 1990 KERALA 226).

4. Mr.Kapse, the learned Counsel for the respondent Nos.1, 3 to 7, has vehemently opposed this petition. He submitted that the order passed by the trial Court is correct and is to be confirmed on the point of not exhibiting the document. He argued that the said document, being a will, is required to be proved as per section 68 of the Evidence Act. Section 68 of the Evidence Act demands a will to be proved, in particular, manner that is, after examining the attesting witnesses. In the absence of examination of the attesting witnesses, the contents of the will cannot be proved and the trial Court, therefore, has rightly asked the defendants to prove the contents of the will by following the procedure u/s 68. The learned Counsel further raised objection on the method of producing secondary evidence in the form of photocopy of the registered will. He submitted that as per the case of Defendant No.1, the original will is in the custody of original defendant No.3, who is the sister of the plaintiff. In the evidence of the plaintiff, he has specifically mentioned that the original will was with Defendant No.3, his sister. Thus, the petitioner ought to have given notice u/s 66 of the Evidence Act calling upon Defendant No.3 to produce the said document. Pursuant to the notice, if the said will would not have been produced by Defendant No.3, then the Court should have been allowed the application of the petitioner seeking permission to tender secondary evidence in the proceedings. However, no proper procedure is followed. In fact, the petitioner should not have allowed to lead secondary evidence. The learned Counsel has further submitted that even though it is argued that the will can be admitted in evidence u/s 58 of the Evidence Act, which says that the facts admitted need not be proved, a will is not a fact but a document and for the proof of a document, i.e., the will, section 68 has specifically indicated the procedure in the Act. He has further submitted that the plaintiff and defendants both have tendered their evidence and have closed the evidence and now the suit is at the stage of arguments of the parties. At this belated stage, the defendant has produced the document and the plaintiff was not confronted with the said document in evidence. Nor did the defendant produce the said document in the course of his evidence. The learned Counsel, therefore, submitted that the order of non-exhibition of the said will is correct.

5. Perused the application (exhibit 67) submitted by the petitioner as also the certified copy of the registered will, which is tendered, taken on record and marked 'X' for identification.

6. In the application, exhibit 67, it is mentioned that defendant No.1 had already produced the document (a copy of the will) alongwith the list of the documents i.e., exhibit 49A. A certified copy of the registered will was produced alongwith the list at exhibit 49A. The Court has passed order of proceeding ex-parte against defendant No.3, therefore, the defendant No.1 (appellant) has submitted this application with a prayer that the certified copy of the will is to be exhibited. It disclosed two points. Firstly, that defendant No.1 has produced the certified copy of the will when he filed the list at exhibit 49A and secondly, the Court has passed an order to proceed ex-parte against defendant No.3. Undoubtedly, it is a certified copy of the will, therefore, it can be taken on record as a secondary evidence. The objection of Mr.Kapse on taking secondary evidence on record cannot be entertained in this petition as the order to that effect is not challenged by the respondent. Therefore, the objections raised by the learned Counsel on the point of exhibition of the document, which is prayed by the petitioner, can be taken into account.

7. If a will is to be proved, a party relying on the said document has to follow procedure u/s 68 of the Evidence Act. It is necessary to examine at least one attesting witness for the purpose of proving the execution of the will. Thus, where the execution of the will is disputed, it is necessary to follow the procedure u/s 68. In the present case, Respondent No.1, who is the original plaintiff, has averred in paragraphs 3 and 4 of the plaint that his father Gajanan Sambhaji Salve died on 12.11.1994. Before his death, he made a will on 9.3.1993 disposing of the suit property which is described and mentioned in the plaint. He has also further averred that as per the said will, the property was divided between the plaintiff, defendant No.2 – his brother Rajendra and one Laxmibai Salve. Accordingly, the names were mutated. In the affidavit in lieu of examination in chief, the plaintiff reiterated all these facts.

8. The plaintiff was cross-examined on the point of subdivision / partition of the suit property. In cross-examination, he had admitted that in the year 1993, his late father made a will, the original of which was with Defendant No.3. He also admitted in the cross-examination the contents of the will on the point of partition. Thus, he has admitted that as per the will, the ancestral land was sub divided and fallen to the respective shares of the successors of Gajanan Salve. He has admitted that he had seen the will.

9. On the background of this evidence, it needs to be considered whether is it necessary to prove the execution of the will as per section 68 of the Evidence Act by examining attesting witness or not? In the reply to the exhibit 67, the application for taking the will on record preferred by Defendant No.1; the respondent did not deny the said will. In the reply he objected that unless the will is proved as per the Indian Evidence Act, it cannot be exhibited, therefore, that application be rejected. In his say, he did not deny that the will is false or he deny it because it is not genuine. He only insisted that it is to be exhibited by following the procedure under the Indian Evidence Act. Further, when there is an admission in respect of the contents of the document and in respect of the execution of the will by his father it is not necessary to prove the execution by putting the attesting witness in the box.

10. It is true that the will itself is not shown to the witness and witness is not confronted with the document in his cross-examination, or the said will is not produced by defendant No.1 i.e., the petitioner, in his examination in chief. In the absence of any cross-examination on the point of will, the document ought not to have been allowed in the evidence. However, when there is a specific cross-examination and admission given by the plaintiff not only on the point of execution but also about the contents of the will, the said document can be exhibited. Moreover, the plaintiff has deposed that he had seen the will. He has not denied that the will is not genuine while he had an opportunity to say so in his reply on exhibit 49A or exhibit 67. Therefore, the contents admitted by the plaintiff, those facts as per section 58 of the Evidence Act need not be proved. Further, the submission of Mr.Kapse could have been appreciated if cross-examination would have been silent on the point of execution of will and its contents and the plaintiff would have denied the genuineness of the document in his reply when he had an opportunity to see and take inspection of the documents.

11. I seek support from the decision of the Division Bench of the Kerala High Court in the case of ThayyulllathilKunhikannan and Ors. vs. Thayyullathil Kalliani and Ors (supra), wherein the Division Bench has dealt with section 58 and section 68 of the Evidence Act and held that the requirement to call attesting witness is unnecessary when the attestation thereof is not disputed. Para 34 of the said judgment is as under:

“Order 8 Rule 5 of the C.P.C. provides that unless there is a specific denial of any allegation of fact made in the plaint, it shall be taken to be admitted. Section 58 of the Evidence Act provides that no fact need be proved in any proceedings, which by any rule of pleadings in force at the time, the parties are deemed to have admitted by their pleadings. In this case, in the absence of any denial in the written statement, the genuineness and the validity of the will Ext. A1 must be deemed to have been admitted by the law of pleadings, namely Order 8 Rule 5, and therefore that fact was not required to be proved at the trial. Section 68 states that if a document is required by law to be attested, ii 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. The proviso to the Section which was introduced by the amending Act 31 of 1926 makes an exception in the case of any document, not being a will, which has been registered, unless its execution by the persons by whom it purports to have been executed, is specifically denied. The fact that the proviso is not applicable to wills, and that it does not make an exception in the case of registered wills, does not lead to any inference that a will cannot be acted upon or used as evidence, unless it has been proved by examining an attesting witness. The only effect of the proviso is that registration of the will by itself does not obviate the necessity of calling an attesting witness to prove it, if it is otherwise required to be proved. The proviso does not speak of a case where a will is not in dispute. Section 68 relates to those documents which require to be proved at the trial of a suit. If by any rule of law or of pleadings, such proof is not required, Section 68 cannot operate to insist on formal proof by calling an attesting witness. Section 58 has to be read as overriding Section 68 and as obviating the necessity for calling an attesting witness, unless the execution of the will or the attestation is in dispute. In the absence of any such plea in the written statement, it will be the height of technicality and waste of judicial time to insist on examination of an attesting witness, before a will could be used as evidence. Phipson on Evidence 12th Edition (1976) explains the rationale behind examining an attesting witness as that he is the witness appointed or agreed upon by the parties to speak to the circumstances of its execution, "an agreement which may be waived for the purposes of dispensing with proof at the trial", (paragraph 1751). In paragraph 1757, the learned author points out that proof of execution of documents required by law to be attested is dispensed with (although the attesting witness may be alive and in Court) "when the execution has been admitted for purposes of trial". Order 8 Rule 5, C.P.C. deems the execution of the will to be admitted in the absence of any denial thereof in the written statement. Examination of an attesting witness is therefore unnecessary when the parties have not joined issue on the validity or genuineness of the will.”

12. In the abovesaid decision, the plaintiffs had produced the will and it was not denied by the defendants and, therefore, by relying on Order 8 Rule 5 of the CPC, it held that there should be specific denial of the averments of the fact made in the plaint and in the absence thereof, it is to be admitted. In the present case, the case is reverse, where the defendant has produced the will and there is no denial on the part of the plaintiff. On the contrary, there are specific averments in the plaint supporting the execution of the will on 9.3.1993 and the contents therein.

13. Under such circumstances, the order dated 12.9.2012 passed by the learned 6th Joint Civil Judge, Junior Division, Nashik rejecting the prayer for exhibition of the document as per section 68 of the Evidence Act requires indulgence.

14. In the result, Rule made absolute in terms of prayer clause (b).

15. At the request of the learned Counsel for the respondent Nos.1, 3 to 7, the order is stayed for a period of four weeks from today.