YUSUF KUTTY Vs. KRISHNA KUMAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff in O.S.6/2014 challenges the order of Sub court, Karunagappally dismissing I.A.1290/2014 filed by him for issue of direction to Deputy Collector (LA) NH.A-1) for production before it an application containing the signature of the 1st defendant filed before the said officer and kept in that office.

(2.) The petitioner herein filed the suit before the lower court for a decree of specific performance of an agreement for sale dated 27.1.2014. The 1st defendant denied the execution of the document and set up a case that it was concocted by the plaintiff. First defendant later filed a petition for sending the disputed agreement for sale, to Forensic Laboratory, Thiruvananthapuram for expert opinion and it was allowed after hearing both parties. It is submitted that the impugned document has not hither to been examined at the laboratory nor the report of the expert is yet received. The plaintiff in the meantime came to know that an application containing the admitted signature of the first defendant in which the latter had consented to acquisition of his land is kept in the officer of the Deputy Collector (LA) NH A-1, Kollam and available to be produced before the expert for comparison with disputed signature. According to plaintiff if the signature in the agreement for sale could be compared with the application containing signature of 1st defendant and kept in the office of Deputy Collector, it would certainly help the expert to form an infallible opinion on the genuineness of the disputed document. The 1st defendant opposed this application on the ground that it was belated and further does not relate to the contemporaneous period. The alleged signature in the application was also denied by him. The court below after hearing both sides felt that the application allegedly available in the office of Deputy Collector (LA) did not relate to the same period and was bereft of any comparable value and accordingly, impugned order was passed dismissing the application filed by the petitioner.

(3.) The question for consideration is as to whether the application alleged to be containing the signature of the 1st defendant could be ordered to be produced in court in the teeth of the circumstances pointed out in the impugned order.