Different Cheque-Payment Recitals In Copies Of Same Sale Deed: Chhattisgarh HC Lets Defendants File Their Copy On Record

Respondents 1–4 brought a suit for declaration of title and permanent injunction concerning property transferred under a sale deed dated 25 September 2013.

The plaintiffs had filed a copy of the deed as Exhibit P/2.

Petitioners, defendants 1 and 5, sought under Order 8 Rule 1(3) CPC to produce another copy obtained from the District Registrar and Punjab National Bank.

The copies contained materially different recitals concerning the sale consideration and the consequences of dishonoured cheques.

The trial court rejected the application, reasoning that the deed was already on record.

The petitioners challenged that order under Article 227 of the Constitution.

The Court considered Order 8 Rule 1(3) CPC, under which a defendant may seek to produce documents in support of the defence, and exercised its supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution.

It applied the principle that a party should not be prevented from placing relevant documentary material on record where it supports a disputed claim; the fact that the underlying transaction or document is admitted does not resolve a dispute about the document’s differing recitals.

The two copies related to the same sale deed, but their recitals differed on a matter relevant to the dispute.

Because the defendants specifically relied on the alternative recital, the Court held that the plaintiffs’ copy being already on record did not make the defendants’ document unnecessary.

The trial court’s reasoning that the deed’s admitted execution meant it required no further proof failed to address the dispute over its contents and was perverse in those circumstances.

The documents filed with that application were directed to be taken on record.

The plaintiffs remained entitled to pursue available remedies concerning the documents before the trial court.