UPINDER SINGH LAMBA Vs. RAMINDER SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The defendant is before this court challenging the order dated 9.8.2011 passed by the learned court below whereby application filed by the plaintiff for permission to examine hand writing expert in rebuttal evidence has been accepted.

(2.) Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the respondent-plaintiff had filed a suit for recovery of ' 5,00,000/- for his alleged malicious prosecution by the petitioner in FIR No. 118 dated 24.9.1994. In the aforesaid suit evidence of the plaintiff was closed on 6.4.2010. Thereafter, the petitioner-defendant led his evidence. After that the plaintiff moved application for permitting him to examine hand-writing expert to compare the signatures of deceased Gurbax Singh Lamba on the alleged agreement to sell. The same could not be permitted at this stage. The plaintiff could not be allowed to lead evidence in rebuttal considering the fact that the onus of the issue as to whether the plaintiff is entitled to recover ' 5,00,000/- for his alleged malicious prosecution by the petitioner, was on him. He was required to discharge the burden at the initial stage and not after the defendant had led his evidence. In support of his argument, he referred to judgments of this court in Surjit Singh and others vs. Jagtar Singh and others,2007 1 PunLR 552, Ram Rattan vs Anand Pandit and others,2009 5 RCR 696, and Mohinder Singh vs Balbir Singh and others,2011 2 PLR 390.

(3.) Learned counsel for the petitioner further submitted that acquittal in a criminal case is not enough to claim compensation for malicious prosecution. Before the civil court the party is required to establish its case beyond doubt that there was malicious prosecution. In support of his submission, he referred to Major Gian Singh vs S. P. Batra, 1973 AIR(P&H) 400, Muthuswamy vs Siddhan and others, 2005 3 RCR(Cri) 79, Sugan Kanwar vs Rakesh, 2007 1 RCR(Cri) 349, Gulabchand Motilal Rathi vs National Textile Corporation and others, 2007 4 RCR(Cri) 195, Ram Lal and etc. vs Mahender Singh and etc., 2008 2 RCR(Cri) 367, and Bhaskara Menon vs Ayyappan, 2008 1 RCR(Cri) 633.