ORDER
Lalit Mohan Sharma, J.
1. By the impugned order passed by the court below in a pending suit, the petitioner has been directed to give his specimen signatures for comparison with certain signature alleged by the plaintiff-opposite party to be of the petitioner. The petitioner is the son of defendant No. 1 who is opposite party No. 2 to the civil revision application, and had put his signatures on certain documents said to be memoranda of partition between the members of the family. The defendant No, 1 has denied the allegations made in the plaint and also the signatures alleged to be of the petitioner; and notices had been issued to the petitioner and in pursuance thereof he appeared in Court on the 18th July, 1978, and objected to the plaintiff’s prayer on the ground that he was not a party to the suit The Court overruled the objection and directed him to give his specimen signatures. The petitioner has now challenged the order by the present revision application.
2. It has been contended on behalf of the petitioner that since he is not a party to the suit, he cannot be directed to give his signatures for the purpose of comparison. In this regard, two provisions of law appear to be relevant; (i) Order 16 Rule 14 of the Code of Civil Procedure and (ii) Section 73 of the Indian Evidence Act. The Court is em-
powered to call as a witness any person other than the party to the suit and he may be so summoned to give evidence or to produce a document. The petitioner, therefore, can be asked by the Court to produce a document containing his signature. Section 73 of the Evidence Act has permitted comparison of a disputed signature with the admitted or proved signature and the second paragraph states as follows :
“The Court may direct any person present in Court to write any words or figures for the purpose of enabling the Court to compare the words or figures so written with any words or figure alleged to have been written by such person.”
The language is wide in terms and empowers the Court to give necessary direction to any person present in Court and there does not appear to be any reason to limit the expression “any person” to parties to the litigation. If the authenticity of a writing by a stranger is necessary to be decided in a case, such a person must come within the sweep of the section. To interpret it otherwise would be to defeat the object of the section. Even if the meaning of the provision be assumed to be ambiguous, the Court must construe it in a way which may advance the object of the section and the interest of Justice. The petitioner was actually present in Court on 18-7-1978, when the impugned order was passed, as has been mentioned in the order itself. I, therefore, do not find any error in the order of the Court below. Besides, the interest of the petitioner also appears to be represented in the suit by his father, the defendant No. 1, and this Court in its discretionary re visional jurisdiction shall not like to interfere with the impugned order in the facts and circumstances of the case. For these reasons, the revision application is dismissed, but without costs.