HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court ruled that it was justified in taking the opinion of a handwriting expert on signatures and ink on promissory notes, to ascertain the genuineness of the signatures when one of the parties raises objections over the signatures. Further, it viewed that trial courts cannot reject such an option on the ground that the application for seeking expert’s opinion was filed at a belated stage.
Justice Juvvadi Sridevi said that the litigants have the right to request the court to forward the document for expert opinion to prove that the signature was not made by him/her. The courts shall allow such an application in view of the fact that the party to the litigation needs a fair trial to exhaust all the defences that are available.
The judge was dealing with a civil revision petition filed by Enagandula Venkateswarlu, employed with Singareni Collieries in Kothagudem district. He challenged the district civil judge orders rejecting his application seeking to send the promissory note, allegedly signed by him and his wife, for an expert’s opinion. One person Erra Ram Shankar approached the district court stating that Venkateswarlu and his wife had taken around `four lakh from him and both of them signed a promissory note. They did not return the amount. Venkateswarlu argued that he and his wife had never the loan and alleged that signatures in the promissory note were not signed by them. He also filed an application before the court requesting it to forward the promissory note to an expert to ascertain the age of the ink used on the document and a comparison of handwritings. But, the trial court rejected his application following which he approached the High Court.
The High Court observed it was on the plaintiff (Ram Shankar) to prove that the signatures on the promissory note were that of the defendants. It is the duty of the plaintiff to take such steps. It directed that the promissory note be sent to a handwriting expert along with the admitted signatures of the defendants and with the age of ink, for his opinion, at the cost of the defendant.
