POTHALAPALA HARI KRISHNA Vs. G. KRISHNAMURTHY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The respondent herein had filed O.S.No.14 of 2019 before the III Additional District judge, Tirupati for recovery of money, based on a promissory notes, against the petitioner herein.

(2.) The respondent had marked the said promissory note as Exs.A.1 and A.2. However, the respondent did not examine the attestors to the said promissory notes. The petitioner herein moved I.A.No.13 of 2023 for summoning the second attestor as a witness in his case, and I.A.No.125 of 2023 for reopening the suit for adducing the evidence of proposed witnesses, on the ground that the petitioner, after his examination as a witness in the suit, had come to know, through mediators, that the alleged scribe and attestor had fabricated the suit promissory notes with the active collusion of each other and therefore it is necessary to summon the attestor as a witness.

(3.) These applications were resisted by the respondent herein on various grounds. The respondent contended that the applications for reopening evidence and summoning the attestor as a witness had been filed after the evidence on both sides had been closed and that the question of reopening of the evidence at the stage of arguments cannot be permitted unless extraordinary circumstances are made out by the applicant. The respondent relied upon a judgment of this Court reported in Batchu Jagadeesh Kumar vs. Mugili Venka Swamy,2015 (5) ALT 284 AP. The respondent also contended that the petitioner herein, while alleging forgery and fabrication of promissory notes in his written statement, had not taken any steps for demonstrating that the signature on the promissory note was a fabricated signature. The respondent also contended that the present application for reopening of the evidence of the petitioner and for summoning the attestor as a witness has only been filed as he had won over the said attestor, and permitting such witness to be examined would not assist any proper adjudication of the case and would amount to abuse of the process of the Court.