Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 – Or.XLI, r.27 – Appellant instituted suit seeking a declaration of title and a decree of permanent injunction against the respondents-defendants – Trial Court decreed the suit – Respondent-defendants preferred first appeal before the High Court – During the pendency of the appeal, the appellant-plaintiffs filed an application u/Or.XLI, r.27 of the CPC seeking to place on record certified copies of the General Land Register maintained by the respondentdefendants – The High Court allowed the appeal filed by the respondent-defendants – Aggrieved, the appellant-plaintiffs instituted a review petition before the High Court primarily on the ground that the application for additional evidence was not decided – The High Court dismissed the review petition and application for additional evidence – Correctness: Held: The High Court has committed no error in rendering the impugned judgments – The appellate court may permit additional evidence only upon being satisfied that the conditions expressly stipulated under Order XLI Rule 27 of CPC are fulfilled – The parties do not possess any vested or automatic right to seek admission of additional evidence at the appellate stage – The appellant-plaintiffs were, from the outset, fully aware that the respondent-defendants had not been impleaded as parties in the earlier civil suit instituted by their predecessors – Having founded their claim upon a decree which was non-est insofar as the respondent-defendants were concerned, it was impermissible for the appellant-plaintiffs to seek to introduce additional evidence at the appellate stage to cure the inherent defects in their case – The present suit being one for declaration of title, it was incumbent upon the appellantplaintiffs, if they indeed possessed a valid title, to adduce their best and complete evidence at the stage of trial before the court of first instance, where such evidence could have been produced as a matter of right – Further, even at the stage of the earlier suit instituted by the predecessors-in-interest of the appellant-plaintiffs, their consistent case was one of lawful title to the suit property – No plea of adverse possession was ever raised – The additional evidence, namely, the entries in the General Land Register, is a mere recording of the land in suit as private land in the GLR does not in any manner benefit the appellants claim of ownership – Whereas, the respondent-defendants have traced their title to the decision of the Union of India dated 17.07.1953, pursuant to which the suit land, along with other immovable properties, vested in the respondent-defendants in terms of title, ownership and possession – The application for additional evidence was thus rightly rejected by the High Court. [Paras 11, 11.4, 11.8, 11.10, 11.11, 11.15] Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 – Or.XLI, r.27:
Held: Rule 27, being couched in negative terms, makes it abundantly clear that parties to an appeal are not entitled to adduce additional evidence, whether oral or documentary, save and except in the circumstances expressly enumerated therein – The provision contemplates only three eventualities in which additional evidence may be permitted: first, where the court which passed the decree has refused to admit evidence which ought to have been admitted; second, where the party seeking to adduce such evidence establishes that, notwithstanding the exercise of due diligence, the evidence was not within its knowledge or could not have been produced at the time when the decree under appeal was passed; and third, where the appellate court itself requires any document to be produced or any witness to be examined in order to enable it to pronounce judgment or for any other substantial cause. [Para 11.3]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Ankit Gyan. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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