GULAM NABI Vs. ABDUL WAHID

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petition herein is directed against an order dtd. 18/7/2023 passed by learned Rent Tribunal, Bhilwara, whereby an application filed by the petitioners seeking permission to tender affidavit as examination in chief of defendants' witnesses, under Sec. 9 of the Rent Control Act, 2001, was dismissed.

(2.) Succinct facts first, as pleaded in the petition.

(3.) Learned counsel for the petitioners submits that the learned trial Court has failed to consider that merely exhibiting a document and making it a part of the judicial record cannot ipso facto prove the veracity of the same. It is a settled position of law that the document can only be proved if its author or the person competent to prove the same enters into the witness box after tendering his affidavit in chief and offers to get himself crossexamined. He further submits that there has been a stark contest in the pleadings of the parties in as much as the respondent in his eviction petition states that the rent of the shop in question is Rs.4,500.00, whereas the petitioners in their written statement have specifically denied it stating that the rent was only Rs.45.00 per month. Once the other application under Order 8 Rule 1(a)(3) CPC was allowed for the petitioners to place on record the documents as proof of rent given by the neighboring shop owners in the form of rent agreements and rent receipts, then denying the opportunity to tender affidavits of examination in chief of concerned persons followed by their cross-examination by the opposite party would lead to a travesty of justice, and therefore, the impugned order deserves to be quashed and set aside.