#Supremecourt: APPLICATIONS TO FILL THE #LACUNAE IN PLEADINGS, NOT #MAINTAINABLE The operative part of the judgement read as under : The perusal of the materials placed by the plaintiff which are intended to be marked as bills have already been mentioned by the plaintiff in its statement of account but the original bills have not been placed on record by the plaintiff till the date of filing of such application. It is further seen that during the entire trial, those documents have remained in exclusive possession of the plaintiff but for the reasons known to it, still the plaintiff has not placed these bills on record. In such circumstance, as rightly observed by the trial Court at this belated stage and that too after the conclusion of the evidence and final arguments and after reserving the matter for pronouncement of judgement, we are of the view that the plaintiff cannot be permitted to file such applications to fill the lacunae in its pleadings and evidence led by him. There is no acceptable reason or cause which has been shown by the plaintiff as to why these documents were not placed on record by the plaintiff during the entire trial. Unfortunately, the High Court taking note of the words "at any stage" occurring in Order XVIII Rule 17 casually set aside the order of the trial Court, allowed those applications and permitted the plaintiff to place on record certain bills and also granted permission to recall PW-1 to prove those bills. Plaintiff has filed those two applications before the trial Court in order to overcome the lacunae in the plaint, pleadings and evidence. It is not the case of the plaintiff that it was not given adequate opportunity. In fact, the materials placed show that the plaintiff has filed both the applications after more than sufficient opportunity had been granted to it to prove its case. During the entire trial, those documents have remained in exclusive possession of the plaintiff, still plaintiff has not placed those bills on record. It further shows that final arguments were heard on number of times and judgement was reserved and only thereafter, in order to improve its case, the plaintiff came forward with such an application to avoid the final judgement against it. Such course is not permissible even with the aid of Section 151 CPC. Reference: #Lawteller-July-2013 (lawteller) #law #legal #advocate #attorney #solicitor #lawyer #vakil #court #barrister #justice #india #judgment #Judge
Posted on: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 07:10:13 +0000
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