JUDGMENT D. Raju, C.J.—The above appeal has been filed against the judgment and decree passed by a learned Single Judge of this Court dated 10.7.1998 in Civil Suit No. 96 of 1985, whereunder the suit filed by the appellants claiming recovery of Rs. 10 lacs as damages with interest due thereon from the defendant-respondent came to be dismissed. 2. The case of the appellants before the learned Single Judge was that they are the owners of the property known as "Boundary Estate" in the revenue estate of Chhota Shimla, that the property was let out to the defendant-respondent on 31.10.1958 by the predecessor-in-interest of the plaintiffs for use and purpose of the Medical Department, that at the time of letting out the property, certain furniture, fixtures and fittings were also handed over to the defendant, that afire broke out on the night intervening 22/23.11.1982, as a result of which the building along with the furniture, fixtures and fittings were got burnt and reduced to ashes, which necessitated the filing of the suit for the relief, noticed supra. It was also pleaded before the learned Single Judge that the property stood also acquired after prolonged proceedings for acquisition under the Land Acquisition Act and the compensation paid did not include the value of the building, which was gutted in fire in the year 1982 and that the building must have been set on fire either deliberately by the defendant or the persons working under it or a fire occurred on account of deliberate act or negligence on the part of the defendant. 3. The defendant while resisting the suit claim, though admitted that the property with its furniture, fixtures and fittings was taken on rent for the use of the Medical Department, it was reiterated that due to fire, which broke out on the intervening night of 22/ 23.11.1982, the main building along with the furniture, fittings and fixtures were gutted and that the fire accident did not take place either on account of deliberate act or negligence on the part of the defendant or its officers. Per contra, according to the defendant, the plaintiffs themselves have been grossly negligent in proper upkeep of the building since in spite of repeated demands made in this regard, they failed to carry out necessary repairs from time to time and the building as well as the furniture, fixtures and fittings were quite old and dilapidated and as a matter of fact had also out lived their utility and consequently the plaintiffs were not entitled to any damages from the defendant. 4. On the side of the plaintiffs, PWs 1 to 3 were examined and for the defendant, DWs-1 to 3 were likewise examined. Documentary evidence was also marked on either side. After considering the oral and documentary evidence on record, the learned Judge, who framed two issues for consideration as to (1) whether the premises in question caught fire due to wilful acts of omission and commission and negligence on the part of defendant No. 1 and the said defendant is liable to make good the loss? and (2) whether the plaintiffs have suffered a loss of Rs. 10 lacs, as alleged? recorded a finding that the plaintiffs neither averred even a single word as to the cause of fire in order to prove any such cause much less stated anything to attribute such cause to the defendant. The learned Single Judge, in the course of analysing the evidence on record pointed out that; the materials on record over-whelmingly proved that it is the plaintiffs, who failed to discharge and perform their duties and obligations imposed under the law in the matter of keeping the building rented in good and tenantable condition by carrying out periodical repairs, and that in spite of demands made as shown by Exs. DW-6/A to DW-6/F, during the period between 1966 to 1981, they were indifferent and did not carry out their obligations, and that though the plaintiffs initially attempted to place reliance on the inquiry report of the City Magistrate, Shimla, who was appointed to inquire into the cause of fire and who had submitted his report, despite the fact that the Inquiry Officer was summoned by the plaintiffs as a witness and he was present in the Court. There was no attempt to mark or prove the report and as a matter of fact, the said witness has been given up as unnecessary. There was no attempt to mark or prove the report and as a matter of fact, the said witness has been given up as unnecessary. It is from the above materials that the learned Single Judge came to the further conclusion that even assuming for the purpose of consideration that the fire was due to short circuiting in the electricity connection, it is only the plaintiffs, who have to blame themselves for having failed to maintain the building in a proper condition by carrying out the necessary repairs to the electrical wiring. In view of the above, the suit came to be dismissed by recording a further finding that the plaintiffs are not entitled to any damages from the defendant. 5. Aggrieved, the above appeal came to be filed. The learned Counsel for the appellants vehemently contended that the findings recorded by the learned Single Judge on Issue No. 1 holding that the fire accident occurred not due to any wilful act, omission or commission and negligence on the part of the defendant, and that therefore, the defendant is not liable to make good the loss, if any, to the plaintiffs, was the result of total mis-reading of the evidence and the failure on the part of the learned Single Judge to keep into account the principle of res ipsa loquitur. Argued the learned Counsel further that the report of the Magistrate, who was asked to inquire into the cause of fire is per se evidence by virtue of Section 80 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 and that the conduct on the part of the defendant in not being regular in the payment of rents and their subsequent action to notify and take over the property under the law relating to acquisition will by themselves be sufficient proof of the required negligence and in difference on the part of the defendant and this could by themselves be sufficient basis to infer the necessary acts of omission and commission, which could have inevitably led to the fire, if the principle of res ipsa loquitur is also applied to the case and, therefore, the suit ought to have been decreed, as prayed for. 6. 6. The learned Counsel in support of "his claim invited our attention to the decisions reported in Syad Akbar v. State of Karnataka, AIR 1979 SC 1848 and The National Small Industries v. Bishambhar Nath and others, AIR 1979 Allahabad 35, besides inviting our attention to the manner of consideration undertaken by the learned Single Judge from reading portions of the judgment under appeal and also the provisions of Section 80 of the Indian Evidence Act as well as portions of evidence recorded in the matter. 7. We have carefully considered the submissions of the learned Counsel for the appellants in the light of the materials on record and also the provisions of law and the decisions relied upon by the learned Counsel. 8. In AIR 1979 SC 1848 (supra), the apex Court was considering a criminal appeal against the judgment rendered by the High Court of Karnataka on a criminal revision petition, wherein the conviction under Section 304-A of the Indian Penal Code came to be sustained by the Courts below including the High Court by applying the principle of res ipsa loquitur. In dealing with the applicability of the principle, the apex Court held as follows: "19. As a rule, mere proof that an event has happened or an accident has occurred, the cause of which is unknown, is not evidence of negligence. But, the peculiar circumstances constituting the event or accident, in a particular case, may themselves proclaim in concordant, clear and unambiguous voices the negligence of somebody as the cause of the event or accident. It is to such cases that the maxim res ipsa loquitur may apply, if the cause of the accident is unknown and no reasonable explanation as to the cause is coming forth from the defendant. To emphasise the point, it may be reiterated that in such cases, the event or accident must be of a kind which does not happen in the ordinary course of things if those who have the management and control use due care. But, according to some decisions, satisfaction of this condition alone is not sufficient for res ipsa to come into play and it has to be further satisfied that the event which caused the accident was within the defendants control. But, according to some decisions, satisfaction of this condition alone is not sufficient for res ipsa to come into play and it has to be further satisfied that the event which caused the accident was within the defendants control. The reason for this second requirement is that where the defendant has control of the thing which caused the injury, he is in a better position than the plaintiff to explain how the accident occurred. Instances of such special kind of accidents which till their own story of being offsprings of negligence, are furnished by cases, such as where a motor vehicle mount? or projects over a payment and hurts somebody there or travelling in the vehicle; one car ramming another from behind, or even a head-on collision on the wrong side of the road. (See per Lord Normand in Barkway v. South Wales Transport Co., (1950) 1 All ER 392 at p. 399; Cream v. Smith, (1961) 8 All ER 349; Richley v. Faull, (1965) 1 WLR 1454. 20. Thus, for the application of the maxim res ipsa loquitur no less important a requirement is that the res must not only bespeack negligence, but pin it on the defendant. 26. From the above conspectus, two lines of approach in regard to the application and effect of the maxim res ipsa loquitur are discernible. According to the first, where the maxim applies, it operates as an exception to the general rule that the burden of proof of the alleged negligence is, in the first instance, on the plaintiff. In this view, if the nature of an accident is such that the mere happening of it is evidence of negligence, such as, where a motor vehicle without apparent cause leaves the highway or overturns or in fair visibility runs into an obstacle; or brushes the branches of an overhanging tree, resulting in injury, or where there is a duty on the defendant to exercise care, and the circumstances in which the injury complained of happened are such that with the exercise of the requisite care no risk would in the ordinary course ensue, the burden shifts or is in the first instance, on the defendant to disprove his liability. Such shifting or casting of the burden on the defendant is on account of a presumption of law and fact arising against the defendant from the constituent circumstances of the accident itself, which bespeak negligence of the defendant. This is the view taken in several decisions of English Courts. (For instance, see Burke v. Munchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Rly. Co., (1870) 22 LT 442; Moore v. Fox (R) & Sons, (1956) 1 QB 596. Also see Paras 70, 79 and 80 of Halsburys Laws of England, Third Edition, Vol. 28, and the rulings mentioned in the Foot-Notes thereunder). 27. According to the other line of approach res ipsa loquitur is not a special rule of substantive law, that functionally, it is only an aid in the evaluation of evidence, an application of the general method of inferring one or more facts in issue from circumstances proved in evidence/ In this view, the maxim res ipsa loquitur does not require the raising of any presumption of law which must shift the onus on the defendant. It only, when applied appropriately, allows the drawing of a permissive inference of fact as distinguished from a mandatory presumption properly so called, having regard to the totality of the circumstances and probabilities of the case. Res ipsa is only a means of estimating logical probability from the circumstances of the accident. Looked at from this angle, the phrase (as Lord Justice Kennedy put it). Russel v. London and South-Western Rly. Co., (1908) 24 TLR 548, only means, that there is, in the circumstances of the particular case, some evidence which, viewed not as a matter of conjecture, but of reasonable argument, makes it more probable that there was some negligence, upon the facts as shown and undisputed, than that the occurrence took place without negligence... It means that the circumstances are, so to speak eloquent of the negligence of somebody who brought about the state of thing which is complained of." 9. The reliance placed upon AIR 1979 Allahabad 35 (supra) is also inappropriate. It means that the circumstances are, so to speak eloquent of the negligence of somebody who brought about the state of thing which is complained of." 9. The reliance placed upon AIR 1979 Allahabad 35 (supra) is also inappropriate. Though the learned Counsel sought to derive great inspiration from this decision having regard to the fact that also involved the loss caused to a building on account of a fire accident, the learned Judges of the Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court chose to apply the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur in that case, not in the abstract but on the proof of the sufficient factual basis to attract such doctrine. A reference to paragraphs 8 and 9 of the said judgment would go to show that there was sufficient evidence on record in that case to prove the possibility of the fire in that case having been caused because of some of the employees of the defendant negligently left a lighted cigarette or biri inside the store room. In this case, as noticed by the learned Single Judge, there was absolutely no material whatsoever and not even any specific averment as to the cause for the fire leave alone there being any evidence in proof of the same. 10. Apart from the observations made by the learned Single Judge in the course of consideration of the materials on record and the conclusion ultimately arrived at, we have ourselves gone through the evidence of PW-1, which would justify every one of the adverse comments made by the learned Single Judge about the shortcomings noticed by him in the matter of proof attempted to be made by the plaintiffs to saddle the liability for the fire accident on the defendant. Though the learned Counsel for the appellants endeavoured repeatedly to point out about the rent for 10 years being left with the defendant unpaid to the plaintiffs, Concedingly in the evidence, it is found stated that they were being periodically recovered of course through petitions filed under the Act before the Rent Controllers Court and that even the initial claim of deduction of one months rent by the defendant to meet the maintenance charges was also given a go-by during the course of cross-examination and that not a single word has been averred by PW-1 or any witness examined on behalf of the plaintiffs to even suggest the defendant or any of the officers of the defendant being the cause or in any way responsible for the accident in question. In such circumstances even applying the norms and principle laid down by their Lordships of the apex Court in AIR 1979 SC 1848 (supra) to a civil case like the one before us, the plaintiffs could not be said to have even remotely made out any case either for the applicability of the said principle to the case on hand or any proof of case against the defendant when it has been held, that a mere proof that an event has happened or an accident has occurred, the cause of which is unknown, is not evidence of any negligence. In the light of practically nil evidence in this case to attribute any negligence or any wrongful acts of omission or commission, which could be attributed to the defendant or its officers, no exception could be taken to the well-merited findings recorded by the learned Single Judge against the plaintiffs in this case. 11. The findings so recorded by the learned Single Judge cannot be said to be either opposed to evidence on record or vitiated by any patent error of law to call for our interference. 12. The reliance placed upon Section 80 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 also for referring to or reeling upon the report of the Magistrate, who has been asked to go into the cause of the fire without even marking the same and without proving the contents thereof in the manner known to law does not merit our acceptance. 12. The reliance placed upon Section 80 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 also for referring to or reeling upon the report of the Magistrate, who has been asked to go into the cause of the fire without even marking the same and without proving the contents thereof in the manner known to law does not merit our acceptance. Section 80 of the Act stipulates that whenever any document is produced before any Court, purporting to be "a record or memorandum of the evidence, or of any part of the evidence, given by a witness in a judicial proceeding or before any officer authorised by law to take such evidence,.....” and purporting to be signed by any Judge or Magistrate or by any such officer as referred to in the said provision, the Court shall presume "that the document is genuine; that any statement as to the circumstances under which it was taken, purporting to be made by the person signing it, are true, and that such evidence, statement or confession was duly taken". Thus, it could be seen the presumption is in respect of only the genuineness of the document and as to the regularity of the circumstances under which the record or memorandum of evidence was taken and that it was of the person, who made it and that such evidence, statement or confession was duly taken but not for automatic proof of contents of the same itself. In this case, as rightly pointed out by the learned Single Judge not only there was no attempt to mark and prove the contents of the report in the manner known to law but though the author of the report was summoned, his examination was dispensed with for obvious reasons and apparently nothing could be said against the approach of the learned Single Judge for having drawn an adverse inference too in this regard against the plaintiffs for their deliberate non-examination of the person, who was also present in the Court pursuant to the summons taken by the plaintiffs. We are also of the view that the very litigation is more of a speculative nature than based on any real or genuine grievance, otherwise the pleadings as also the proof attempted to be undertaken could not be of such sub-standard nature as one presented in this case, obviously for the reason that they had nothing to prove against the defendant in this case. The suit being one for damages on the alleged acts of omission and commission, which, according to the plaintiffs, was the cause for the fire accident, requires to be proved by substantial and concrete evidence, which is legally acceptable too and inasmuch as the plaintiffs have miserably failed in their attempt to prove any such lapse in the defendant, the suit claim has rightly been rejected by the learned Single Judge. For all the-reasons stated above, we see no merit whatsoever in the appeal. The appeal, therefore, fails and shall stand dismissed. CMP No. 109/98 : In view of the dismissal of the main appeal, this application is also dismissed. Application dismissed.