Under Order XIII Rule 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, when can a court reject a document that has already been marked as an exhibit at trial?

Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 — Order XIII Rule 3 — Rejection of documents — Marking as exhibit not proof of contents — Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 — Order XIII Rule 3 — Threshold rejection of documents — Held: A document already marked and exhibited during trial cannot be rejected at the threshold under Order XIII Rule 3 CPC unless it is prima facie inadmissible in law or irrelevant to the matters in issue; an objection that goes only to its evidentiary weight must be examined at the final hearing, not screened out midway. (¶9) Indian Evidence Act, 1872 — Proof of documents — Marking as exhibit distinct from proof of contents — Held further: Marking a document as an exhibit, even without objection, only records its production; it does not amount to proof of its contents, which must still be established through primary or secondary evidence in accordance with law. (¶11) Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 — Order XIII Rule 3 — Objections on admissibility to be decided at final judgment — Held further: Following the deferred-objection procedure for evidence-stage disputes, an objection to admissibility should ordinarily be noted and the document tentatively marked, leaving the court to rule on admissibility only while deciding the case finally; premature exclusion at the threshold defeats this object. Appeal dismissed. (¶10, 13)

One judgment a day. That's the whole habit.

LexStreak turns the Supreme Court's output into a five-minute daily read for advocates — plain-language headnotes, the questions each judgment settles, and the full text when you need it.

Free forever plan · 30 seconds · data stays in India

“3. Rejection of irrelevant or inadmissible documents.— The Court may at any stage of the suit reject any document which it considers irrelevant or otherwise inadmissible, recording the grounds of such rejection.”

“13. It is an archaic practice that during the evidence-collecting stage, whenever any objection is raised regarding admissibility of any material in evidence the court does not proceed further without passing order on such objection. But the fallout of the above practice is this: Suppose the trial court, in a case, upholds a particular objection and excludes the material from being admitted in evidence and then proceeds with the trial and disposes of the case finally. If the appellate or the revisional court, when the same question is recanvassed, could take a different view on the admissibility of that material in such cases the appellate court would be deprived of the benefit of that evidence, because that was not put on record by the trial court. In such a situation the higher court may have to send the case back to the trial court for recording that evidence and then to dispose of the case afresh. Why should the trial prolong like that unnecessarily on account of practices created by ourselves. Such practices, when realised through the course of long period to be hindrances which impede steady and swift progress of trial proceedings, must be recast or remoulded to give way for better substitutes which would help acceleration of trial proceedings. 14. When so recast, the practice which can be a better substitute is this: Whenever an objection is raised during evidence-taking stage regarding the admissibility of any material or item of oral evidence the trial court can make a note of such objection and mark the objected document tentatively as an exhibit in the case (or record the objected part of the oral evidence) subject to such objections to be decided at the last stage in the final judgment. If the court finds at the final stage that the objection so raised is sustainable the Judge or Magistrate can keep such evidence excluded from consideration. In our view there is no illegality in adopting such a course. (However, we make it clear that if the objection relates to deficiency of stamp duty of a document the court has to decide the objection before proceeding further. For all other objections the procedure suggested above can be followed.)” (emphasis supplied)

“25. We are of the firm opinion that mere admission of a document in evidence does not amount to its proof. In other words, mere marking of exhibit on a document does not dispense with its proof, which is required to be done in accordance with law. 31. Under the law of evidence also, it is necessary that contents of documents are required to be proved either by primary or by secondary evidence. At the most, admission of documents may amount to admission of contents but not its truth. Documents having not been produced and marked as required under the Evidence Act cannot be relied upon by the court. Contents of the document cannot be proved by merely filing in a court.” (emphasis supplied) [See also: Sait Tarajee Khimchand v. Yelamarti Satyam[^3], Narbada Devi Gupta v. Birendra Kumar Jaiswal[^4], Vijay v. Union of India and Ors.[^5]]