ORDER
Lalit Mohan Sharma, J.
1. The plaintiff-opposite party No. 1 has filed a suit for money on the basis of two Hundis. The defendant No. 2 — petitioner objected to the documents being taken in evidence on the ground that they are not sufficiently stamped. By the impugned order, the Court has overruled the objection.
2. Mr. Sachidanand Jha, appearing on behalf of the petitioner, contended that in view of the definitions of “Bill of exchange” and “Bill of exchange payable on demand” in Sections 2 (2) and 2 (3) of the Indian Stamp Act and Article 13 thereof, the hundis in question must be held to be subject to the mischief of Section 35. Alternatively, he argued that since in the hundis, the drawer and drawee are the same person, it may have to be held that they are not bills of exchange at all, but in eye of law, are promissory notes; but again in view of the provision of the Act they cannot be admitted in evidence.
3. Mr. Baijnath Prasad No. 2, learned counsel for the opposite party, has taken a preliminary objection on the basis of Section 36 of the Indian Stamp Act which reads as follows:
“36. Where an instrument has been admitted in evidence, such admission shall not, except as provided in Section 61. be called in question at any stage of the same suit or proceeding on the ground that the instrument has not been duly stamped.”
4. A number of decisions have been relied upon on behalf of the plaintiff. Mr. Jha pointed out that in all the reported cases, the admission of the documents was challenged in appeal from the final decision in the suit and no case decides the point where the order admitting the document itself is directly challenged in revision. He has attempted to interpret the section to bar the re-examination of the question at a subsequent stage in the litigation and not when the order of the court admitting the evidence is immediately challenged.
5. It is true that none of the cases cited before me is a case similar to the present one, but on that ground, I do not see any reason to take a different view. The section, as quoted above, says that the admission of an instrument shall not be called in question “at any stage” of the litigation. The expression does not suggest any exception to the rule by reference to time or manner in which the decision of the first court is challenged. As has been observed by the Supreme Court in Hindustan Steel Ltd. v. Dilip Construction Co. (AIR 1969 SC 1238). the Stamp Act is a fiscal measure enacted to secure revenue for the State on certain classes of instruments. It is not enacted to arm a litigant with a weapon of technicality to meet the case of his opponents. The stringent provisions of the Act are conceived in interest of the revenue. With a view to defeat a technical objection by a party challenging the admission of a document, the legislature included Section 36 in the Act. The section
ought to be interpreted in a manner so that its object may be fully achieved. There does not appear, therefore, (any-reason?) to place a narrow meaning of the section. The expression “at any stage” should be given wide connotation. So I hold that the petitioner cannot be allowed to re-agitate the question even by filing a revision application immediately. The observation to the following effect made by the Supreme Court in Javer Chand v. Pukhrai Surana (AIR 1961 SC 1655), although in circumstances which may be distinguishable from the present case, may be usefully quoted (at p. 1657):
“Once a document has been admitted
in evidence as aforesaid, it is not open
either to the trial court itself or to a
court of appeal or revision to go behind
that order.”
6. In the result, I hold that the preliminary objection taken by the plaintiff must prevail. In that view, it is not necessary to decide the point argued by Mr. Jha on the merits of the impugned order. The revision application is dismissed but without costs.