Om Prakash (Dead) Th. His LRs. v. Shanti Devi & Ors.
Background
The respondent (plaintiff), who had let the appellant occupy her property on a licence basis, sued for its return. The appellant, her brother-in-law, resisted, claiming the respondent had gifted him the property via a Gift Deed executed in 1970. The respondent denied executing any such deed and said her signature, if genuine, may have been obtained by misrepresentation. The Trial Court, the First Appellate Court, and the High Court all ruled against the appellant, finding the Gift Deed was never properly proved.
Decision Breakdown
Under Section 90 of the Evidence Act, a document that is thirty years old when tendered in evidence can be presumed genuine without separately proving its execution by calling the attesting witnesses. The appellant tried to rely on this presumption, but the Supreme Court found that when he first tendered the Gift Deed in evidence (in his own testimony), it was only about 29 years and 5 months old, short of the thirty-year threshold, so the presumption could not apply. The Court rejected his attempts to recalculate the relevant date (e.g., from a later witness's testimony or the date of the trial court's judgment) and held he had made no independent effort to prove the deed's execution through the ordinary evidentiary route either. The appeal was accordingly dismissed, though without costs.
Lesson Learnt
The thirty-year presumption for old documents under Section 90 of the Evidence Act is measured from the date the document is actually tendered/proved in court, not from registration, trial, or judgment: a few months' shortfall is fatal to the presumption, so a party relying on an old document should ensure it has genuinely crossed thirty years before tendering it, or be ready to prove its execution independently.