Can Certified copy issued by the
Registrar be marked as evidence?
The plaintiffs attempted to adduce
in evidence a certified copy of a registered partition deed. Before this was
done, the plaintiffs had asked defendants to produce the original partition
deed but the same had not been complied with. A registration copy was therefore
sought to be let in.
The defendants contended that
since the registration copy was not thirty years old it should be proved
strictly like the original and the presumption under Sec.90 of the Evidence Act
could not be drawn in this case.
The executants and the attestors
of the original partition deed are dead and it was not possible to prove the
same by direct oral evidence.
The Learned District Munsif
followed the Privy Council decision and held that where a copy of a document
purported to be thirty years old is produced
it can be admitted in evidence. (Privy Council in Basant Singh v.
Brijraj Saran Singh, AIR 1935 PC 132).
Sec.57 of the Indian Registration
Act deals, among other things, with the grant of certified copies. Sec.57(5)
lays down that all copies given under that section shall be signed and sealed
by the registering officer and shall be admissible for the purpose of proving
the contents of the original documents.
But the law permits the cerfied
copy as secondary evidence, when the loss of original document or where a original
is withheld by a party. In such situation the certifed copy can be admitted
under Sec.57(5) of the Registration Act.
That a registration copy is the copy
of a public document contemplated under Sec.74(2) of the Evidence Act is indisputable
and the copy of such a document is a certifed copy of a public document under Sec.76
of the Evidence Act.
The Madras High Court in this case
hold that the registration copy of the partition deed sought to be let in does
not require any further proof and is therefore admissible in evidence.
Madras High Court in Karuppanna
Gounder v. Kolandaswami Gounder, AIR 1954 Mad 486 : (1953) 2 MLJ 717.
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