Das, J.This was suit for rent. According to the plaintiffs the defendants took a joint settlement of 89.27 acres agreeing to pay Rs. 440 per year besides cess The defendants filed separate written statements and they defended the suit substantially on the ground that they were in possession of lands under separate settlements from the landlord. It has been found by the Court below that one Mr. Carter split up the tenancy of the defendants and in this view the Court passed separate decrees against the three defendants on the jama admitted.

2. The plaintiffs produced a hukumnama dated 19th June 1913 in support of their case. The Court of first instance rejected the document as it was filed too late and the learned District Judge in the Court below has come to the conclusion that that document was rightly rejected by the Court of first instance. The only question which has been argued before us in this appeal is that in the circumstances of the case the learned Subordinate Judge should have accepted the document.

3. The suit was filed on 23rd May 1923. The defendants filed their written statements on 6th August 1923. On 26th September 1923 the learned Subordinate Judge adjourned the case to 15th November 1923, and passed the following order:

The parties will file documents and get their witnesses summoned in the meantime.

4. It is clear therefore that the parties had to file the documents on or before 15th November 1923. Now the document upon which the plaintiffs rely was not in fact filed on 15th November 1923 but on 6th December 1923, that is to say, about three weeks after the date fixed for the filing of the documents. They filed a petition in Court asking the permission of the Court to file certain documents. including the document in question. We have read the petition and there is no doubt whatever that one of the documents which they wanted to file on 6th December 1923 was "asal parwana register bandobasti Khaira State." In the petition they stated that this document had to be filed in the Court of the Munsif of Jamui in connexion with another case and that it was for that reason that it could not be filed in Court earlier. The learned Subordinate Judge passed no order upon the application either directing the document to be filed or rejecting the document on the ground that it was filed too late. Now this was the position on 6th December 1923. On 17th June 1924 the case was taken up. The plaintiffs tendered a bound volume entitled "Parwana of Settlement of lands for Mal Departments" and the defendants objecting to the document, not on the ground that it was irrelevant, but on the ground that it was filed too late, the learned Subordinate Judge rejected it. The question is whether the learned Subordinate Judge properly exercised his discretion in rejecting this document. Order 13, Rule 1 compels the parties to produce at the first hearing of the suit all the documentary evidence of every description in their possession or power, on which they intend to rely, and which has already been filed, in Court and all documents which the Court has ordered to be produced. Rule 2, however, provides as follows:

No documentary evidence in the possession or power of any party which should have been but has not been produced in accordance with the requirement of Rule 1 shall be received at any subsequent stage of the proceedings unless good cause is shown to the satisfaction of the Court for the non-production thereof; and the Court receiving any such evidence shall record the reasons for so doing.

5. Now no doubt Rule 2 gives a discretion to the trial Court either to receive the document or to reject it if filed after the date of the first hearing of the suit; but it appears to me that if the Judge comes to the conclusion that the document so filed should not be received he should at once pass an order rejecting the document. Now this procedure was not adopted by the learned Subordinate Judge in this case. The result was that the document remained in the custody of the Court from the 6th December 1923 until the 17th January 1924 on which latter date the Court rejected the document. In my opinion the effect of not rejecting the document when produced for the first time by a party is that the Court has in effect received it and it no longer lies in the power of the Court afterwards to reject the document on the ground that it was not produced in time. Rule 3 of the Code to which reference is made gives him the power to reject the document afterwards on the ground that it is irrelevant or otherwise inadmissible, not on the ground that it was produced too late.

6. I do not, however, propose to rest my decision on this ground, for I have no doubt whatever that the discretion was improperly exercised by the trial Court. Order 13, Rule 1 was enacted to secure a fair trial of a case, not to penalize parties for not producing documents in time. Its main object was to prevent parties from manufacturing evidence pending the trial to meet unexpected exigencies. Now, if there is no ground for believing that the document tendered has been manufactured, then, in my opinion, the Judge exercises his discretion improperly in rejecting a document on the ground that it was produced too late, for, as I have said, the rules to be found in the CPC were not enacted for penalizing the parties, but to secure a fair trial of the case. Now what is the position There is not the slightest doubt at all that the document tendered is a genuine document and could have been manufactured by the parties. We have examined the document for ourselves, and we find that it was actually filed in the Court of the Munsif of Jamui on 25th June 1923. The document bears the seals of various Courts of various dates showing that it was produced on numerous occasions in different Courts as evidence on behalf of the present plaintiffs or their predecessors-in-title. There is therefore no suspicion attaching to this document. Now if this be so, what reason was there for rejecting the document when it was actually tendered As I have said the rule was enacted to prevent fraud by the late production of suspicious documents; so that if no suspicion can possibly attach to the document there is no ground whatever for rejecting it. In my opinion therefore the discretion was improperly exercised by the learned Subordinate Judge; and, as it was held by Mukherji, J., in Talewar Singh v. Bhagwan Das 12 C.W.N. 312 the High Court can interfere with such wrong exercise of discretion in a matter of this nature in a second appeal.

7. I must allow the appeal, set aside the judgments and the decree passed by the Court below and remand the case to the Court of first instance for disposal according to law. It will now be open to the plaintiffs to tender the document in question and the learned Subordinate Judge will have to deal with the whole question afresh. Costs will abide the result and will be disposed of by the learned Subordinate Judge. The plaintiffs will have the opportunity to give such evidence as they desire for the purpose of proving this document; but it must be clearly understood that they will not be allowed to give any other evidence. It will be open to the defendants to produce evidence to rebut this document.

Fazl Ali, J.

8. I agree.