Defendants Cannot Introduce Death Certificate As Additional Evidence Without Relevant Pleadings: Jharkhand HC Rules In Property Dispute

Setting aside an order of a district court allowing introduction of a death certificate as evidence in a property dispute, the Jharkhand High Court said that a death certificate issued years after the death, based solely on an affidavit, cannot be admitted as additional evidence if it lacks evidentiary basis and is inconsistent with the pleadings. Presiding over the case Justice Subhash Chand held that, “Even if this document, which is public document issued on the individual information of the applicant/ defendant after the judgment and decree passed in the original suit, this public document itself cannot be taken on record because there is no pleading to that effect on record on behalf of the defendants in regard to the date of death of their mother Ramwati Devi and there is no plea that Ramwati Devi had not executed sale deed in favour of plaintiff prior to her death.”The Court made this observation while setting aside the order of the District Judge-III, Lohardaga, which had allowed the appellants to introduce a death certificate as additional evidence under Order XLI Rule 27 of the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC).The dispute was related to the property between the plaintiffs, Motilal Agarwal and Dr. Sachidanand Agarwal, and the defendants, who are the legal heirs of one Ramwati Devi. The plaintiffs obtained a decree in a Title Suit, claiming that they had acquired the disputed property by a sale deed executed by Ramwati Devi in 1973. While assailing the decree, the defendants produced a death certificate to show that Ramwati Devi had died in 1970, three years before the execution of the sale deed.The death certificate, which was issued in 2018 based on an affidavit filed by one of the appellants, was produced to prove the sale deed as invalid. However, the High Court ruled that the additional evidence of this certificate did not satisfy the provisions under Order XLI Rule 27 of the CPC.The High Court, while passing its judgment, made it clear that additional evidence under Order XLI Rule 27 could not be admitted unless it attained the preconditions. The Court noted that the death certificate, which claimed Ramwati Devi died in 1970, was issued in 2018 based solely on an affidavit submitted by one of the defendants. The Court remarked, “In this death certificate itself, nowhere it has been mentioned what was the basis of date of death of Ramwati Devi.”The plaintiffs had earlier secured a decree in their favor in Title Suit No. 31 of 2015, asserting ownership of the disputed property through a sale deed executed by Ramwati Devi in 1973. The defendants, while challenging the decree, introduced the death certificate to claim that the sale deed was invalid as their mother had allegedly died three years before its execution.However, the it was pointed out by the Court that the defendants' written statement did not include any plea regarding their mother's death before the execution of the sale deed. The Court, while citing the Apex Court's judgments in the cases Bondar Singh & Ors. Vs. Nihal Singh & Ors. reported in 2003 AIR SCW 1383 and Satish Kumar Gupta Vs. State of Haryana reported in (2017) 4 SCC 760, reiterated, “no party can be permitted to adduce evidence beyond pleadings.”Consequently, the Court allowed the Civil Miscellaneous Petition filed by the plaintiffs, setting aside the order of the District Judge, to the extent it permitted the introduction of the death certificate.Case Title: Motilal Agarwal vs Ram Babu Sharma and OrsLL Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Jha) 5Click Here To Read Judgement

Defendants Cannot Introduce Death Certificate As Additional Evidence Without Relevant Pleadings: Jharkhand HC Rules In Property Dispute

Bhavya Singh

Tags