OM PRAKASH BERLIA Vs. UNIT TRUST OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question to be decided arises in the contest of a copy of the return of allotments filed by the 8th Defendants. Company with the Registrar of Companies and an extract of the Annual Return also so filed, both certified to be true by the Registrar under S. 610 of the Companies Act. The said true copy and extract have been admitted on record as the 1st defendants exhibits (at Exhibits 17 and 18). The question is: is the truth of their contents established prima facie as Mr. Nariman, learned counsel for the 1st defendants contends, or must the truth thereof be proved?

(2.) It is necessary to set out the relevant provisions of the Evidence. Act. In Section 3 a document is defined as any matter expressed or described upon any substance by means of letters, figures or marks or by more than one of those means, intended to be used or which may be used for the purpose of recording that matter. Again in Section 3, a fact is said to be proved when after considering the matters before it, the Court either believed it to exist or considers its existence so probable that a prudent matter ought, under the circumstance of the particular case, to act upon the supposition that it exists. Section 59 states that all facts except the contents of documents, may be proved by oral evidence. Section 65, under the heading "Of Documentary Evidence states that the contents of document may be proved either by primary or secondary evidence. Section 62 states that primary evidence means the document itself produced for the inspection of the Court. Sec 63 relates to secondary evidence and states that secondary evidence includes, inter alia, certified copies given under the provisions therein after contained in the Act and oral accounts of the contents of a document given by some person who has himself seen it. Section 64 requires that documents must be proved by primary evidence except in the cases thereinafter mentioned. Section 65 relaters to those cases and states that secondary evidence may be given of the existence condition or contents of a document. It states that it is only when the original is a public document within the meaning of Section 74 that a certified copy of it, but no other kind of secondary evidence, is admissible. Section 67 requires that if a document is alleged to be signed or to have been written wholly or in part by any person, the signature or the handwriting of so much of the documents as is alleged to be in that persons' handwriting must be provided to be in his handwriting,. Section 74 to 78 are in relation to "Public Documents" and are "the provisions thereinafter contained" mentioned in S. 63. Section 74 sets out what document are public documents. Sub-Section (1) states that documents forming the acts, records of the acts of the sovereign authority, of official bodies and Tribunals, and of public officers, legislative, judicial and executive, are public documents. Sub-section (2) states that public records kept in any State of private documents are public documents Under. S 76 every public officer having the custody of a public document is obliged to give any person on demand a copy of it together with a certificate that it is a true copy of such document or part thereof; such copies so certified are called certified copies. Under S. 77 such certified copies may be produced in proof of the contents of the public documents or parts of the public documents of which they purport to be copies. Section 79 to 90 are under the head of "Presumptions as to documents" Section 79 deals with certified copies; it provides that the Court shall presume to be genuine every documents purporting to be a certificate, certified copy, or other documents, which is by law declared to be admissible as evidence of any particular fact. and which purports to be duly certified by an officer of the Government. Under its provisions the Court shall also presume that any officer by whom such documents purports to be signed or certified held, when he signed it, the official other character which the claimed. the only section under this head which requires the presumption of the accuracy (or truth or correctness) of the documents to be drawn is S. 83; thereunder the Court shall presume that maps or plans purporting to be made by the authority of the Central or any State Government were so made and are accurate.

(3.) Much depends upon the interpretation to be given to the expression "the contents of documents" in the Act. It was contended at first by Mr. Nariman that that expression wherever used in that Act meant the truth of the contents of documents. When, however, the Court pointed out to him the provisions of S. 63. (5), Mr. Nariman submitted that at least in Ss. 61 and 77 that expression bore that meaning,. being linked to "proved" in S. 61 and to "proof" in Section 77.