NARBADASHANKAR MANOHARLAL JAISWAL Vs. JAMNABAI MANOHARLAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application by the defendant in a suit pending before the Civil Judge Ujjain, praying that his order admitting into evidence certified copies of four documents (two by the defendant and two others by his father) filed before the Income Tax Officer should be set aside as contravening Section 54 (1) Income-tax Act and Section 76 of the Evidence Act. Normally, a question like this would have been left to be considered during the appeal, if any, filed by the aggrieved party in time. But in the present case, however, the parties feel that this evidence alone might de-cide the suit, the defendant fearing of course, that once this is admitted, the suit may be decreed against him.

(2.) THE relevant facts are that there was one Manoharlal Jaiswal doing business and owning properties at Ujjain. He died leaving a widow Jamna-bai, a daughter-in-law Kamalbai (widow of a predeceased son) both of whom ara the plaintiffs and a second son, Narbadashankar who is the defendant in the present suit for partition. THE plaintiffs aver that the business and the properties of Manoharlal were themselves ancestral, and Narbadashankar is managing them as karta of the joint family of which they are members.

(3.) A different view has no doubt been taken in the Calcutta judgment, there it was held that a partner or a person claiming to be a partner in a firm was not entitled to get disclosure of the contents of a statement filed by the other partner. It is difficult to agree with this view as there is nothing in Section 54 (1) expressly supporting it and this carries the assessee's privilege well beyond the ostensible purpose of that section. Though the Patna judgment (AIR 1959 Pat 172) apparently follows the Calcutta view, the position is not quite similar.