Marking a Document as Exhibit Is Not Proof of Its Contents, Supreme Court Reaffirms
A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Kotiswar Singh dismisses an appeal seeking to shut out documents at the evidence stage in a probate suit, holding that exhibition and proof are distinct steps in law.
The Supreme Court on 7 August 2026 dismissed a civil appeal filed by defendants in a probate suit who had sought to have the plaintiff's proof affidavit and the documents exhibited through it eschewed at the evidence-collection stage itself. The Court, comprising Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh, upheld concurrent orders of a Single Judge and a Division Bench of the Madras High Court refusing to invoke Order XIII Rule 3 of the Civil Procedure Code, 1908. The judgment draws a clear line between the act of marking a document as an exhibit and the separate legal requirement to prove its contents, a distinction the Court said the appellants had collapsed in their argument.
The Probate Suit and How the Dispute Reached the Supreme Court
On 17 October 2019, the respondent Tmt. P. Ponni filed a suit—originally numbered O.P. No. 164 of 2020, later converted to T.O.S. No. 12 of 2021—before the Madras High Court seeking probate of the will of one late C. Shyamalavalli. The suit remained pending at the time the appeal was heard.
The appellants, S. Sangeetha and others, filed their written statement on 19 April 2021. After the plaintiff filed a proof affidavit on 10 August 2022, the appellants moved Application No. 4262 of 2022 praying that the proof affidavit, its averments, and the documents exhibited through it be eschewed on the ground that certain documents and averments were irrelevant to the testamentary proceedings.
The Single Judge dismissed the application on 4 November 2022. Among other observations, the Single Judge noted that the defendant could not object to a lengthy proof affidavit when they themselves had filed a 16-page written statement in response to a 5-page petition. The Single Judge also found that document numbers 5 to 9 could not be marked because they were xerox copies filed without any explanation as to the non-availability of the originals, but that all other documents could be received in evidence for determining rival claims over the will.
The appellants preferred Original Side Appeal No. 31 of 2023. The Division Bench of the Madras High Court dismissed the appeal on 21 August 2024, imposing costs of Rs. 10,000 on the appellants on account of their conduct. The Division Bench added that evidence, both oral and documentary, should not be shut out at the initial stage, and that mere filing of an affidavit does not dispense with proof by relevant evidence. The appellants then approached the Supreme Court by way of special leave, which was granted.
Exhibition Does Not Equal Proof: The Court's Central Holding
The Supreme Court found no reason to interfere with the reasoning of either court below. On the xerox copies, it agreed that the Single Judge had rightly rejected documents 5 to 9 because they were not originals and no explanation had been offered for the absence of originals.
On the wider question of whether the remaining documents should be excluded at the threshold, the Court held that the objections raised did not make those documents prima facie inadmissible in law or irrelevant to the properties involved in the suit. It expressly said that exercise of power under Order XIII Rule 3 of the Civil Procedure Code, 1908 by the Supreme Court was not warranted.
The Court also held that contentions and documents in the proof affidavit relating to the pendency of other suits and transfer of properties involving the same family structure could not be rejected at the threshold.
Crucially, the Court recorded that whatever documents have been marked or exhibited will still have to be proved in accordance with law at the appropriate stage. Marking as exhibit gives the document a place on the record; it does not settle the question of whether the contents are proved.
Precedent: Bipin Shantilal Panchal and LIC v. Ram Pal Singh Bisen
The Court drew on two precedents to anchor its reasoning. The first was the three-judge bench decision in Bipin Shantilal Panchal v. State of Gujarat, (2001) 3 SCC 1, which had criticised the practice of courts pausing trials to rule on admissibility objections during evidence collection. That bench had recommended that trial courts note the objection, mark the document tentatively as an exhibit subject to the objection, and then decide admissibility at the final judgment stage. The rationale was to prevent the risk of appellate courts being deprived of evidence that was excluded prematurely by the trial court, which would then require remand for fresh recording of evidence.
The second was the Division Bench decision in LIC v. Ram Pal Singh Bisen, (2010) 4 SCC 491, which the Court quoted directly on the relationship between exhibition and proof: “mere admission of a document in evidence does not amount to its proof.” That judgment had clarified that contents of a document cannot be proved by merely filing it in court, and that admission may go to the contents but not to their truth.
The Court also noted additional decisions in Sait Tarajee Khimchand v. Yelamarti Satyam, (1972) 4 SCC 562; Narbada Devi Gupta v. Birendra Kumar Jaiswal, (2003) 8 SCC 745; and Vijay v. Union of India and Ors., (2023) 17 SCC 455, as further authority for the same proposition.
Taken together, these decisions form the consistent position that shutting out documents before the final stage of a trial—absent a clear threshold bar such as inadmissibility on their face—is not the correct approach under the Code.
Why Order XIII Rule 3 Did Not Apply Here
Order XIII Rule 3 of the Code permits a court at any stage of the suit to reject a document it considers irrelevant or otherwise inadmissible, with reasons recorded. The appellants had argued this power should be exercised to remove the plaintiff's proof affidavit and accompanying documents.
The Court found the provision inapplicable for two reasons. First, the objections to the documents (other than the xerox copies already excluded) did not make those documents prima facie inadmissible or irrelevant. Second, the settled practice endorsed in Bipin Shantilal Panchal is to let documents in tentatively and resolve admissibility at the final stage, so that no evidence is irretrievably lost before the trial court can form a complete picture.
The appellants' attempt to use Order XIII Rule 3 as a pre-emptive tool to foreclose the plaintiff's evidence was therefore rejected. The Court's position is that the evidentiary contest over the will of late C. Shyamalavalli must play out through the trial, not be curtailed before the plaintiff has had the opportunity to prove what has been marked.
Order
The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the judgment and order dated 21 August 2024 passed by the Madras High Court in OSA No. 31 of 2023. The Court directed that the testamentary proceedings in T.O.S. No. 12 of 2021 are to proceed uninfluenced by the observations made in the judgment. The stay of proceedings that had been granted by the Supreme Court on 11 November 2024 was vacated. Pending applications, if any, were disposed of.