K V RAMACHARI Vs. KVKRISHNAMACHARI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) First defendant in O.S. No. 8 of 1923 on the file of the Second Additional Subordinate Judge's Court, Madura, has put in two revision petitions Nos. 86 and 87 of 1924 asking for revision of two interlocutory orders of the Subordinate Judge with reference to inspection of his documents by plaintiff. Interference by this Court with the proceedings of a lower Court during the pendency of a suit is to be deprecated unless strong reasons are made good, but in the present case I think that the revisional powers of this Court must be exercised, partly on the ground that the lower Court has not properly understood the provisions of Order 11, Rule 14, of the Civil Procedure Code, and partly on the ground that the result of its orders may be wholly unnecessary and irremediable damage to 1 defendant's business interests.

(2.) There are two main contentions in the suit--(a) that plaintiff is really a partner in 1 defendant's firm and trade, (b)that plaintiff is therefore entitled to a taking of the partnership accounts. In his written statement 1 defendant referred, without giving particulars, to a number of documents on which he proposed to rely. Later on he filed various lists of them at various times and produced about 1,400 documents and put in a final affidavit of documents on 20 September, 1923, in which he prayed the Court that it should not allow inspection of any document by plaintiff without specific orders and without notice to him. On 24th October, 1923, plaintiff, without filing any affidavit, put in a memo. asking for inspection of all documents filed in Court by defendant and followed that up on 1st November, 1923 by an affidavit in which he requested that one Mannar Aiyar be permitted to inspect on his behalf. On that the lower Court on 2nd November, 1923 passed the first order now under revision, permitting plaintiff to inspect 212 documents, but refusing to allow Mannar Aiyar to inspect as he was not a power- of-attorney agent for plaintiff.

(3.) I cannot assent to the proposition that, when a party was produced in Court under Order 11, Rule 14, documents in his possession but has urged that inspection should not be allowed before hearing his objections, the Court has a right to ignore that protest and the other party has a legal right to inspect all documents relating to all issues and to all stages of the trial of the suit, i.e., that the mere production by one party gives an immediate and indefeasible right of inspection to the other. I do not read Order 11, Rule 14, as justifying any such conclusion. As the Court was proceeding according to the usual practice in the moffussil, to allow inspection in Court under Order 11, Rule 14, and not under Rule 15, I hold it was bound to consider 1 defendant's objections to inspection and especially bound to consider whether plaintiff was entitled to inspect all these documents at that stage of the case, viz., before trial had begun. As pointed out above, the first point to be decided in the case is whether plaintiff is or was a partner in 1 defendant's trade. Until that is decided, in plaintiff's favour, obviously plaintiff has no right whatever to be allowed to inspect the trade accounts, apart from those which bear on the question of partnership. The Court has no right to assume that plaintiff is a partner, and, if it must hold that he is not unless and until he proves that he is, clearly it is unjustified in law in allowing a stranger, merely on the allegation that he is a partner, permission to inspect all the trade accounts of 1 defendant. The conduct of business would be impossible under such conditions and the Court has clearly lent itself to a course which is wholly opposed to public policy, and it is therefore necessary for this Court to interfere.