Judgment :- 1. This Second Appeal arises out of a suit for declaration of title to and recovery of possession of property. Plaintiff's deceased grand-father obtained a decree in O.S. No. 243 of 1088 of the Tiruvella Munsiff's Court on a hypothecation bond executed by the first defendant in his favour, and the plaintiff, who obtained the right under the said decree in a partition in his family and who was impleaded in the execution proceedings as additional decree-holder, purchased the plaint property in execution of the decree. When the Amin who was deputed to effect delivery of possession in pursuance of the court sale went to the property two obstruction petitions were filed before him. One of those petitions was filed by the second defendant who is the first defendant's brother, and the other was filed, according to the plaintiff, by Mathews Kathanar who was a cousin of defendants 1 and 2. The obstructors' case was that under the partitions in their family the first defendant was entitled to and was in possession of only one-half Oodukur right in the northern half of the property, that the remaining one-half Oodukur right in the northern half belonged to and was in the possession of the 2nd defendant and the whole of the southern half belonged to and was in the possession of Mathews Kathanar, that the first defendant was therefore competent to hypothecate only his Oodukur one-half share in the northern half and not the rest of the property and the decree and execution proceedings were binding only on the first defendant's share in the property and not on the shares of the second defendant and Mathews Kathanar, and that the Oodukur one-half share in the northern-half belonging to the second defendant and the southern-half belonging to Mathews Kathanar could not be delivered to the plaintiff. On account of the obstructions the Amin did not effect delivery and returned the warrant unexecuted to the court, and on its return plaintiff filed a petition before the execution court for removal of the obstruction. According to the plaint allegations, both the second defendant and Mathews Kathanar filed objection petitions in execution court in answer to the plaintiff's petition for removal of the obstruction, and the execution court dismissed the objections of Mathews Kathanar on 21.11.1097 and ordered delivery of possession of the southern-half to the plaintiff. According to the plaint allegations, both the second defendant and Mathews Kathanar filed objection petitions in execution court in answer to the plaintiff's petition for removal of the obstruction, and the execution court dismissed the objections of Mathews Kathanar on 21.11.1097 and ordered delivery of possession of the southern-half to the plaintiff. So far as the Oodukur one-half share in the northern-half claimed by the second defendant was concerned, the second defendant filed a suit, O.S. No. 111 of 1097, for declaration of his title to and possession of that share, and as that suit was decreed plaintiff lost the right to get delivery of the Oodukur one-half share in the northern-half claimed by the second defendant. According to the plaintiff, on 8.8.1100 he got delivery of possession of the southern-half claimed by Mathews Kathanar and the Oodukur one-half right in the northern-half which admittedly belonged to the first defendant. Exts. C and D respectively are attested copies of the obstruction petitions Mathews Kathanar is alleged to have given to the Amin and the objection petition he is said to have filed before the execution court in answer to the plaintiff's application for removal of the obstruction, and Exts. F & G respectively are attested copies of the delivery kychit dated 8.8.1100 and the execution diary in O.S. No. 243 of 1088. Alleging that till 1109 he was in possession of the property delivered to him under Ext. F and that the defendants thereafter trespassed upon and took possession to it plaintiff brought this suit for declaration of his title to and recovery of possession of the same. Mathews Kathanar is dead, and defendants 3 to 5 are his legal representatives. 2. The first defendant contested the suit. According to him, the southern-half belonged to Mathews Kathanar and the first defendant had no right to it and was not also competent to hypothecate that half. Mathews Kathanar was in possession of the southern-half till his death, and defendants 3 to 5 are in possession of it after his death. The plaintiff has not obtained delivery of possession of the southern-half, and the originals of Exts. C, D and F are sham and fraudulent documents brought into existence by the fraud and collusion of the plaintiff and the second defendant. The plaintiff has not obtained delivery of possession of the southern-half, and the originals of Exts. C, D and F are sham and fraudulent documents brought into existence by the fraud and collusion of the plaintiff and the second defendant. With a view to deprive Mathews Kathanar and his legal representatives of the southern-half and enable the 2nd defendant to obtain it wrongfully, the originals of Exts. C and D were caused to be filed as though they were filed by Mathews Kathanar. But they were not really filed by him, and so the order dismissing the objection petition is not binding on Mathews Kathanar and defendants 3 to 5. The plaintiff has therefore no right to the southern-half and is not entitled to recover possession of the same. 3. The trial court upheld the fifth defendant's contentions. Consequently it dismissed the suit as regards the southern-half and gave the plaintiff only a decree declaring his title to one-half share in the southern-half of the plaint property and allowing him to recover possession of that share alone. As the appeal which he filed against the trial court's decree was also dismissed by the lower appellate court, the plaintiff has filed this second appeal. In this court, it was contended that Exts. C, D and F prove conclusively that it was Mathews Kathanar who filed the obstruction petition in regard to the southern-half, and that as his objection to the delivery of possession of the plaint property was dismissed by the execution court, and neither he nor his legal representatives filed a suit for setting aside the order of the execution court and declaring his title to the northern-half within the time allowed by law the order dismissing his objection has become conclusive and that defendants 3 to 5 have therefore lost their title to the property and the plaintiff is entitled to recover possession on the strength of his title under the court-sale and delivery. Relying on the decision in Thevan Sreedharan Moothathu v. Raman Raman (7 T.L.R.18), that a written statement filed in court is a public document and every public document duly filed in courts of justice, under the express provisions of law, must be presumed to be genuine until the contrary is proved, the plaintiff's counsel contended that the obstruction petitions filed before the Amin and the objection petition filed in Court (i.e. the originals of Exts. C and D) are pleadings of parties similar to written statements and that they must therefore be presumed to be genuine. The decision relied upon by the plaintiff's counsel has been expressly dissented from in Krishnan v. Kalyani (14 T.L.J. 138). There was a dispute in that case as to whether a written statement in a previous suit which was Ext. II therein was really signed by one Aiyappan Narayanan or not. Referring to that contention and the argument put forward on behalf of the defendants-respondents that Ext. II being a pleading filed in Court must be presumed to be genuine, the learned judges who decided that case say: "There is no evidence worth the name that it was signed by him except the vague and interested statement of the 3rd defendant who however does not say that he saw Aiyappan Narayanan actually signing it. The learned Vakil for the defendants-respondents invites us to presume Ext. II to be genuine and to hold that Aiyappan Narayanan must have signed it, on the ground that it is a public document. He relies upon the observations in 7 T.L.R. 18 for the purpose. But as far as we know the views expressed in that case that written statements must be taken as public documents and presumed as such to be genuine, i.e., actually signed by the parties by whom they purport to be signed, has not been followed in subsequent cases. With the greatest respect to the very eminent judges who decided the case, we are unable to accept the position taken therein as correct. Such a presumption may no doubt be legitimately drawn with reference to what are really public documents, i.e., records prepared by any public office in the course of its public business. But the pleadings stand on a quite different footing. They are prepared and signed out of court and filed only subsequently in court. To regard them as public documents and presume their genuineness on that basis, would, in our opinion, open a wide door to fraud. For instance, it is conceivable that a written statement containing important admissions, a confession of judgment, a compromise petition, a petition certifying satisfaction of decree and so on, which cannot be distinguished on principle from pleadings, may be filed purporting to be signed by persons who have not really signed them. For instance, it is conceivable that a written statement containing important admissions, a confession of judgment, a compromise petition, a petition certifying satisfaction of decree and so on, which cannot be distinguished on principle from pleadings, may be filed purporting to be signed by persons who have not really signed them. To presume them to be genuine and act upon them and put the burden of proving that they are not genuine upon persons who dispute them, it may be long after they had been filed and after the originals thereof had been destroyed, must lead to considerable hardships in practice. We are strongly fortified in our view that pleadings in a case cannot be regarded as public document by the following weighty observations at page 528 of the Law of Evidence by Woodroffe and Amir Ali - "That class of documents which consists of plaints, written statements, affidavits and petitions filed in court, cannot be said to form such acts or records of acts as are mentioned in the section, and are, therefore, not public documents." In commenting upon the case of Shazada Mahomed v. Daniel Wedgebarry (10 B.L.R. App. 31) they make the following remarks:- "In the case cited below, which was a suit arising out of an alleged trespass, certified copies of judgment of the Munsiff in a previous suit between the parties as well as decree, were admitted in evidence as public documents; certified copies of the plaint and written statement were also tendered in evidence on the ground, of their being public documents, and objected to. The plaint was admitted, but the written statement was rejected. The correctness, however, of this decision, so far as it held the plaint to be admissible has been for a long time doubted and has not been followed on the original side of the Calcutta High Court. The decision is, it is submitted, erroneous; there being no principle upon which the case of a plaint can be distinguished from that of a written statement. Both are the acts or record of the acts of private parties and not of a public tribunal or its officers." In Akshoy Kumar v. Sukumar Dutta (A.I.R. 1951 Calcutta 320) also it has been held that written statement filed in a previous suit is not a public document. Both are the acts or record of the acts of private parties and not of a public tribunal or its officers." In Akshoy Kumar v. Sukumar Dutta (A.I.R. 1951 Calcutta 320) also it has been held that written statement filed in a previous suit is not a public document. The term'public document' is defined in S. 74 of the Evidence Act as follows: "The following documents are public documents: (1) documents forming the acts or records of the acts (i) of the sovereign authority, (ii) of official bodies and tribunals, and (iii) of public officers, legislative, judicial and executive, whether of British India, or of any other part of Her Majesty's dominions, or of a foreign country; (2) public records kept in British India of private documents." As pointed out in Woodroffe and Amir Ali's Evidence, pleadings and petitions signed and filed in court by private persons can only be the acts or records of the acts of the private persons who have signed and filed them and cannot in any sense be held to be the acts or records of the acts of any public tribunal or its officers. Such documents cannot therefore be treated as public documents, and when their genuineness is disputed, and the question is whether a particular person has signed the document or not, no presumption of genuineness can be drawn from the mere production of an attested copy. The fact that the particular person has signed the document must be affirmatively proved, as in the case of other private documents, by the party alleging the same. The originals of Exts. C and D are not before Court, and from the copies it is not possible to ascertain whether the signatures in the originals are genuine or not. It was submitted at the time of hearing that the originals of Exts. C and D have been destroyed under the Rules for the destruction of records. Even if they have been destroyed, it was easy for the plaintiff to prove that Mathews Kathanar had singed them by calling the Amin to whom the original of Ext. C was given or the Vakil who had drafted the objection petition (original of Ext. D) and filed it in court on his behalf. The plaintiff has not cared to call either of them as a witness, although he had included the Amin in his list of witnesses. C was given or the Vakil who had drafted the objection petition (original of Ext. D) and filed it in court on his behalf. The plaintiff has not cared to call either of them as a witness, although he had included the Amin in his list of witnesses. No doubt, the plaintiff says that he was present when the original Ext. C was given to the Amin. But as pointed out by the Court below the plaintiff's evidence is that the original of Ext. C was given to the Amin by the second defendant and not by Mathews Kathanar. His evidence that Mathews Kathanar also was present at the time the second defendant gave Ext. C to the Amin has been disbelieved by the courts below, and they have given very cogent reasons for doing so. Further, as pointed out by the lower appellate Court, there are grave reasons to think that the originals of Exts. C and D were fabricated and caused to be filed in Court by the second defendant with the collusion of the plaintiff. Although he claims that he obtained possession of the property under Ext. F delivery, the plaintiff knows nothing about the property, and does not even know the name of his servant who, according to him was collecting the profits on his behalf for some time. In his cross examination, he practically admitted that the second defendant is the force behind him. In the circumstances, the concurrent finding of the courts below that Mathews Kathanar had not really signed the originals of Exts. C and D has to be confirmed, and in view of that finding the contention that the order dismissing Ext. D and directing removal of the obstruction is binding on Mathews Kathanar and his legal representatives cannot be upheld. 4. No other point was urged at the time of hearing. 5. In the result, the second appeal fails and is dismissed with costs. Dismissed.