SHAMRAO Vs. MOTIRAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) 1. The suit out of which this application for revision arises was apparently instituted on 14th November 1929, though the date of presentation has not been endorsed on the plaint and the date on the order-sheet is illegible. On 2nd February 1931 the plaintiff sought to file copies of certain statements said to have been made by defendants 2 and 3 in income-tax proceedings and of orders passed by the income-tax officer in those proceedings. The lower Court held that these were confidential documents by virtue of Section 54, Income-tax Act, and that copies of them were inadmissible in evidence. Issues were framed on the same date. The case was delayed for about a year while the plaintiffs unsuccessfully sought revision in this Court of the order rejecting the above documents. The case was fixed for evidence on 24th June 1932, and the plaintiffs' case was closed in default on 28th September 1932, but subsequently reopened. On 25th September 1933 the income-tax officer was examined on behalf of the plaintiffs who attempted to put to him the certified copies of the statements made to him by defendants 2 and 3 and to ask him questions about the assessment of these defendants. This was disallowed.

(2.) IN the meantime the plaintiffs had sought leave on 21st April 1933 and 22nd April 1933 to deliver interrogatories to defendants 2 and 3 asking whether they had made certain statements before the income-tax officer. These defendants objected to such interrogatories but replied that they did not remember what statements they had made. The lower Court held that these answers were insufficient and ordered Under Order 11, Rule 11, that the defendants should make sufficient answers. Against that order the defendants now seek revision. A party may deliver interrogatories in order to ascertain the nature of his opponent's case or to support his own case, in order to narrow the points in issue or to avoid proving facts which are admitted. Under the Evidence Act the contents of documents may not, except when secondary evidence is admissible, be proved by oral evidence because it is a cardinal rule that, where written documents exist, they shall be produced as being the best evidence of their own contents. The plaintiffs have admittedly adopted the procedure of delivering interrogatories in order to prove the contents Of documents which have been held inadmissible in evidence, and I think that this procedure is entirely misconceived. It is open to a party to object to state the contents of a written document or to reply that the said document when produced will be the best evidence of its own contents: see Odgers on Pleading and Practice, Edn. 8, at pp. 304 and 305. Under Order 11, Rule 2, leave shall be given as to such only of the interrogatories submitted as the Court considers necessary either for disposing fairly of the suit or for saving costs. Under this rule, to which the lower Court has not referred, I do not see how interrogatories as to the contents of written documents can be said to be necessary either for disposing fairly of the suit or for saving costs.