RAM KISHORE Vs. MADAN MOHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By way of this petition filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, petitioner has prayed for the following reliefs:-

(2.) Brief facts necessary for the adjudication of the present petition are that petitioner herein has filed a suit for declaration that they are owners in possession of the suit property being the legal heirs of deceased Shri Jagan Nath with consequential relief of permanent injunction by restraining the defendants from making any kind of alienation/changing nature of the suit land etc. The suit is pending adjudication before the Court of learned Civil Judge, Court No. (2), Una, District Una, H.P. During the pendency of this suit, an application was filed by the petitioner/plaintiff under Order 16 of the Civil Procedure Code read with Section 151 thereof, for summoning defendants Madan Mohan and Rajinder Kumar as witnesses. It was mentioned in the application so filed, which is appended with the present petition as Annexure P-3 that one witness Ashok Kumar deliberately and intentionally denied writing of his brothers Madan Mohan and Rajinder Kumar and this fact can only be put to the defendants concerned by confronting them with the document, which required presence of the defendants as witnesses.

(3.) The application was resisted by the defendants inter alia on the ground that it was for the plaintiff to prove his case and defendants were not supposed to collect evidence in favour of the plaintiff/applicant. It was also the stand of the defendant before the learned Trial Court that compelling a witness to depose against himself was prohibited under the provisions of Article 20 of the Constitution of India and as the defendants were senior citizens, filing of the application was just a delay tactic being adopted by the plaintiff/applicant.