Nand Lal Sah vs Ram Kali Devi and Others

M.P. Verma, J.—The contesting defendant No. 5 of Title Suit No. 136/1971 has come in revision against an order dated 11-5-1981 passed by Sri G. S. Poddar, Additional Munsif at Muzaffarpur, by which the learned Munsif has refused to give the petitioner a chance of rebuttal of the evidence adduced on behalf of the plaintiffs-opposite party in the court below. It is not necessary to state the facts of the case. The short point in this revision is whether the court below could refuse the chance of adducing evidence in rebuttal by the petitioner-defendant when after the close of the case, the court has permitted the plaintiff-opposite parties to adduce further evidence, oral or documentary.

The order impugned is patently a refusal to exercise jurisdiction vested in the court by law, because if the plaintiff-opposite parties were allowed to adduce further evidence after the close of the defendant''s case, there could be no justification for the court to refuse the defendant a chance of rebuttal. The reasons assigned by the learned Munsif are not tenable, because the necessity to make a prayer to examine the pleader commissioner arose only when the plaintiff entered into further evidence. No two scales can be adopted by the court. If a court grants indulgence for further evidence to one party, it cannot refuse the prayer for rebuttal of the other side. It is immaterial if the prayer was rejected earlier.

In the result, this application succeeds and the court is directed to allow the prayer of the defendants and to proceed with the case in accordance with law No order as to costs.