The Supreme Court on Friday (August 7) clarified that a document cannot ordinarily be rejected at the initial stage of a trial merely because objections have been raised against its admissibility after it has been marked as an exhibit.

A bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh held that mere exhibition of a document does not amount to proof of its contents. The contents and authenticity of an exhibited document must still be established in accordance with law during the course of the proceedings.

The Court was hearing an appeal arising from a Madras High Court decision concerning a probate proceeding. The appellant-defendant had challenged the refusal to exercise powers under Order XIII Rule 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC) to reject certain documents exhibited by the respondent-plaintiff in a proof affidavit.

Order XIII Rule 3 CPC empowers a court to reject a document at any stage of a suit if it considers the document irrelevant or otherwise inadmissible, while recording reasons for doing so.

In the present case, the High Court had rejected photocopies of certain documents but allowed other documents relating to family disputes, pending litigation and property transactions to remain on record.

The Supreme Court upheld this approach.

Justice Karol, who authored the judgment, observed that the documents in question could not be rejected at the threshold as they could potentially have a bearing on the dispute and may become relevant to the adjudication of the suit.

The Court reiterated that merely marking a document as an exhibit does not establish the truth or authenticity of its contents.

“Mere marking of a document as an exhibit, is not a proof of the contents thereof,” the Court observed.

It added that the contents of the documents marked as exhibits would still have to be proved in accordance with law. Therefore, there was no reason to reject them at that stage.

The Court further noted that the Single Judge had rightly rejected the photocopies where the originals were not produced and no explanation was offered for their absence.

However, the objections raised against the other exhibited documents did not make them prima facie inadmissible or irrelevant to the properties involved in the dispute.

Accordingly, the Supreme Court held that there was no justification for exercising the power under Order XIII Rule 3 CPC and dismissed the appeal.

Case Title: S. Sangeetha & Ors. v. Tmt. P. Ponni