- (1.) THIS is an application in revision under sec. 10 (2) of the Rajasthan (Protection of Tenants) Ordinance, 1949, against an order of the S. D. O. Rajgarh granting protection to the opposite party under sec. 7 of the Ordinance.
(2.) AS the opposite party was unrepresented before me, I have examined the record of the case and have also heard the counsel for the applicant. Two points have been urged before me in respect of this revision. The first is that the applicant desired that he should be examined as a witness in support of his case but his statement was not recorded by the lower court. The second is that the lower court has wrongly rejected the evidence of voluntary surrender produced by the applicant. As regards the first contention, there is no doubt that the applicant gave his name in the statement of witnesses whom he desired to be examined in support of his case but subsequently he produced another application on 9. 3. 54 in which be requested the court to record the evidence of his four witnesses and did not mention his own name nor does he appear to have offered himself in the witness box or to have ever raised objection before the lower court that his evidence was not recorded. This clearly shows that he had changed his mind and did not desire to offer himself for examination. There is thus no force in this contention. As regards the second contention, sec. 67 of the Evidence Act lays down that if a document is alleged to have been signed or written wholly or in part by any person, the signature or the handwriting of so much of the document as is alleged to be in that person's handwriting must be proved to be in his handwriting. The mode of proving a signature or writing recognised by the Evidence Act, among other modes, also requires that either the person who signed or wrote the document or such a person in whose presence the document was signed should be produced and satisfactory evidence, both about the execution of the document as also of the signatures of the executant, should be led. In this case it was alleged that the opposite party, Shri Chhajju, executed and signed the deed of voluntary surrender, Ex. 1. Chhajju denied the execution. The scribe, Laxmi Narain, was not produced. Only three attesting witnesses, Kesri Singh, Kishore and Naina were produced. Keshri Singh stated that in his presence the opposite party, Chhajju had, requested the applicant Pratap Singh to enhance the period of his lease of the land in dispute but Pratap Singh declined to do so except on increased rent and therefore, Ex. D. 1 was written by Laxmi Narayan on behalf of Chhajju and it was signed by him and Chhajju. Kishore admitted that the deed of surrender, Ex. D. 1, was written in his presence but he stated that it was not signed in his presence. He could not also recognise his own thumb impression. Naina stated that Pratap Singh asked Chhajju, opposite party, to cultivate the land but he refused to do so and therefore Pratap Singh asked him to write the deed of surrender which the latter did. This witness also could not recognise his own signatures or those of Chhajju. In the first place, the evidence of these witnesses as regards the execution of deed by Chhajju is not very convincing. Secondly, if we consider that Chhajju did write out this deed of surrender, no evidence was led that possession ever transferred to the applicant. The lower court was therefore Justified in placing no reliance on this evidence. At the time of argument, the counsel for the applicant raised one more point, viz. that the opposite party, Chhajju, after the expiry of his term of lease in Svt. 2010 had become a trespasser and as such he did not enjoy a status of tenant in order to entitle him to the benefit of Rajasthan (Protection of Tenants)Ordinance. I have no hesitation in holding that this contention has no force. A tenant holding over can by no stretch of imagination be held to be a trespasser. There is a specific provision in the Alwar State Revenue Code that a tenant holding over shall be liable to payment of rent at the same rates as the rates of previous year until he is duly evicted from the land. In the result, I find there is no force in this revision which is hereby rejected. .;