R ELANGO Vs. K DHANASEKARAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE three CRPs. in CRP. Nos. 1023 to 1025 arise out of the common order passed by the trial court rejecting the application filed by the defendant in comparing the signature found in the promissory note whose genuineness was disputed by the defendant for assessment by handwriting expert. The claims under the three suits were to sums above Rs. 3 lakhs in each suit.

(2.) IN all the suits, the signatures found in the promissory notes were denied by the defendant and having regard to the relatively large sums of money which were sought to be claimed under the disputed documents, the defendant had thought of securing a handwriting expert's opinion by sending the documents for comparison with the admitted signatures of the defendant and for obtaining the report of the handwriting expert. The trial Court rejected the petition on the ground that the defendant had not set out any details of the so called admitted document and in the absence of such information, it was not possible to countenance the plea raised by the petitioner.

(3.) THE petitioner contended that having regard to the fact that the amount claimed under the promissory notes were substantially large sums, the petitioner was entitled to seek for a expert's opinion that there had been really no delay in filing the application. The written statement had been filed on 3. 4. 2007 in all the suits and application for taking an expert's opinion was filed reasonably early before commencement of the trial on 8. 9. 2007. It was his contention that the question as to what document shall be compared with the signatures found in the promissory notes would be a matter that could be addressed at the time when the expert had the custody of the documents for making his assessment and merely because the admitted documents had not been tendered before the Court at the time of filing of the petition, the petitioner could not have been rejected.