SUDHIR ENGINEERING COMPANY Vs. NITCO ROADWAYS LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) What appears prima facie to be an insignificant and inconsequential aspect of dicial proceedings has however assumed significance in my view as it is a matter of y-to-day recurrence witnessed,by me sitting on the Original Side. Can a document marked as an exhibit only when it has been proved? Does mere endorsing of an exbit number on the document tant amounts to expression of judicial opinion on its oof?

(2.) Before me, the plaintiff is standing in the witness box. His pleaded case is that he had delivered certain documents to a transporter in the presence of Notary Public and the Notary Public had made a report of the proceedings which had taken place in his presence. The plaintiff has in his deposition referred to the report of the Notary Public. Before the Court Master could endorse an exhibit number on the report of the Notary Public, counsel for the defendants has sprung up to raise an objection on the document being so endorsed staling - "the document has not yet been proved; how it can be marked as an exhibit?"

(3.) Not only the counsel in the case, but also other members of the Bar usually appearing on the Original Side and present in the Court have stated that it has been a practice of this Court not to mark a document as an exhibit so long as it has not been proved and endorsing of a document with an exhibit mark is treated as a 'proof' of the document pre-empting the right of the parly disputing the document to contend at the final hearing that the document was not proved in the manner contemplated by law.