SULAIMAN Vs. RAMACHANDRAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN a suit on a promissory note, the defendant denied the execution of the promissory note, and disowned the signature therein. He filed an application in the trial court for sending the promissory note to a handwriting expert along with some other documents containing his admitted signatures, for examination by the expert. The court below rejected the application and hence the defendant has come up in revision.

(2.) THE learned Sub Judge while dismissing the application has relied on the observations of Ramamurti, J. in Narasimhan v. Narayana chettiar (1968) (ii) M. L. J. 48) deprecating the practice of sending original documents, in the custody of the court, to handwriting experts. Those observations are as follows: "the practice of sending original documents in the custody of Court to handwriting experts is a highly objectional and a very bad procedure. Under no circumstances should a Court permit or allow the documents to go out of its custody, as such an evil practice is attendant with various risks. THE proper procedure in such cases would be only to permit the handwriting expert to inspect the document in the Court premises itself in the presence of some responsible officer of the Court and also if necessary permit the expert to have photographic copies of documents in the presence of a responsible officer of the Court. Any lapse in taking the necessary safeguards in this direction may result in miscarriage of justice, besides creating complications. "

(3.) I am in respectful agreement with the aforesaid reasoning made by Misra, C. J. The application to send the disputed document in this case, to an expert for examination should not have been rejected outright. The court can pass an order to send the document to the Director of the government Forensic Laboratory, Trivandrum. If that course is found to be not feasible due to any practical difficulty, the court can direct any other expert to do that work, and the choice of the expert can be made by the court. Whatever safeguards which the court thinks necessary to impose to prevent the tampering with or loss of the document, could be imposed. For the foregoing reasons I allow this C. R. P. and set aside the impugned order. I direct the court below to pass appropriate orders in the light of the observations made above. No costs. . .