KHORMAS INTERNATIONAL COMPANY Vs. BANK OF BARODA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Revision Petitioners are defendants in a suit filed by respondent on the strength of a foreign judgment before Sub Court, Quilon. The admissibility of the document was questioned by revision petitioners. The court below admitted that document in evidence. That order is under challenge in this revision.

(2.) It is urged by the learned counsel for revision petitioners that the copy of the foreign judgment was inadmissible in evidence since the conditions stipulated in S.78 and 80 of the Indian Evidence Act were not complied. Those conditions are mandatory according to revision petitioners and are to be complied with before the judgment can be admitted in evidence and proved.

(3.) A judgment of a foreign, court is enforced on the principle that when an adjudication has been made by a court of competent jurisdiction and it is found that a certain sum of money is due to one person from another a legal obligation thereby arises to pay that sum. By enforcing that judgment an action can be instituted for realisation of the money covered by that judgment. On the production of a certified copy of a foreign judgment a presumption has to be drawn that such judgment was pronounced by a court of competent jurisdiction unless the contrary appears on the record provided copy is a duly authenticated copy of the judgment. Vide S.14 C. P. C. But that presumption may be displaced by proving want of jurisdiction. The judgment has to be proved in the manner prescribed by the Indian Evidence Act. The relevant sections of the Evidence Act are S.74, 78(6) and 86. S.78(6) provides that public documents of any other class in a foreign country may be proved by the production of the original or a copy certified by the legal keeper thereof with a certificate under the seal of a Notary Public, or of an Indian Consul or diplomatic agent, that the copy is duly certified by the officer having the legal custody of the original, and upon proof of the character of the document according to the law of the foreign country. That the judgment is a public document cannot be disputed since it is a document forming the act of a public judicial officer of a foreign country as contemplated in S.74 of the Indian Evidence Act. S.86 reads thus: