Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 – Ord.11 r.14 and Ord.7 r.11 – Production of documents – Rejection of plaint – Matter as regards subject land – Purchasers-appellants and ownersrespondents involved in multiple litigations arising from sale deed in respect of subject land, filing of civil suit seeking declaration of title, determination of validity of sale deed, application seeking rejection of plaint – Trial court dismissed suits – Respondents filed appeal against the order of the trial court – In these two appeals, respondents filed application u/Ord.11 r.14 CPC praying for direction to the Tehsildar to produce Mutation Register in respect of suit schedule property and application seeking permission to raise additional grounds in the first appeal – First appellate court allowed the applications – Writ petition u/Art.227 – High Court affirmed the order of first appellate court – Correctness: Held: While allowing the application u/Ord.11 r.14 trial court did not adhere to the principles governing the disposal of the application – Plain reading of the provision would manifest that same enables court to seek production of the documents during the pendency of the suit – Suit preferred by respondent no.1 has already been dismissed by the trial court consequent upon the rejection of the plaint while allowing the appellants’ application u/Ord.7 r.11 – Stage for leading the evidence is yet to arrive in the suit – In regular appeal pending before first appellate court, court is not enjoined to decide the merits of the controversy – First appellate court will only examine the validity of the trial court’s order rejecting the plaint – No documents other than plaint can be seen by trial court or first appellate court without examining the issue concerning rejection of the plaint u/Ord.7 r.11 – First appellate court as also trial court were unnecessarily influenced by the observation made by Supreme Court while dismissing criminal Special Leave Petition – This observation would only mean that civil court proceedings shall be determined on its own merits – It nowhere enables civil court /first appellate court to pass an order beyond the scope of Ord.11 r.14 – Order passed by trial court as affirmed by the High Court in the impugned order allowing the prayer made by respondent no.1 for production of Mutation Register is totally misconceived and suffers from an error of exercise of jurisdiction and is set aside – Order allowing respondent no.1 to raise additional grounds in regular appeal does not suffer from any illegality and is affirmed. [Paras 7-10]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Nidhi Jain. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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