DATTATRAYA SHRIPATI MOHITE Vs. SHANKAR ISHWARA MOHITE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) (After stating facts not material to this report his Lordship proceeds)

(2.) We have referred to the diverse admissions made by the defendants from time to time since the year 1939 of the title of the plaintiff to the suit lands. The learned trial Judge ignored these admissions somewhat lightly purporting to rely upon the judgment of Beaumont, C. J. in Ramabai Shriniwas v. Government of Bombay, 43 Bom LR 232 (AIR 1941) Bom 144) In the view of the learned trial Judge, it was decided in Ramabai's case that admissions made by a person concerning the subject matter in dispute in the course of a proceeding, cannot have any evidentiary value in adjudging upon the truth or otherwise of the claim made by that person in a subsequent proceeding concerning the same subject matter. It must at once be observed that Beaumont C.J. has not laid down any such proposition. We may take this opportunity of stating that the observations made in this case are often misunderstood. Beaumont. C.J. merely laid down that an admission made by a party in a pleading in a vicil proceeding will be regarded as bidning upon him in that proceeding and he will not be permitted to go back upon it in the course of that proceeding; but the admission cannot be regarded as conclusive and binding upon him in any other proceeding and it is open to him to show that that admission made in the earlier proceeding was in fact not true. The observation on which reliance was placed by the learned trial Judge is contained in the following paragraph.

(3.) It is difficult to hold that by these observations the learned Chief Justice intended to lay down the proposition that an admission on a question of fact made by a party in the course of a proceeding has in another proceeding no value whatever and cannot be regarded as a good piece of evidence relying on which the opposing party may contend that the claim made in the subsequent proceeding is unjustifiable in the light of the admissions made in the earlier proceeding. In our view, Ramabai's case 43 Bom LR 232; (AIR 1941 Bom 144) is not an authority in support of the view that the court is not even entitled to consider admissions solemnly made by a party in the course of proceedings in other suits relating to the same subject matter. We are unable to agree with the observation made by the learned trial Judge in paragraphs 35, 36, and 44 of his judgment that the admissions made by defendants Nos. 1 and 2 in the proceedings in suit No. 565 of 1948 and the revenue proceedings and in the earlier suit No. 3 of 1941 have no evidentiary value. (The rest of the judgment is not material for reporting).