JUDGMENT Hon’ble Rajan Roy, J.—Matter was taken up in revised list. Heard Sri Madan Behari Lal, learned counsel for the petitioners and perused the record. None appeared for the respondents. By means of this writ petition the petitioners have challenged the order dated 24.4.1998 passed by the first appellate Court whereby the application of petitioners under Order XLI Rule 27 CPC has been rejected on the ground that said provisions cannot be used for filling up lacunae or lapses in the case and additional evidence can only be adduced at the appellate stage on satisfaction of the conditions mentioned under Order XLI Rule 27 CPC. By an interim order dated 6.8.1998, this Court had stayed further proceedings of Civil Appeal No. 32 of 1997 and the said proceedings have remained stayed till date. 2. The petitioners are daughters of one Sudarsan. According to petitioners, their father had bequeathed his entire property in their favour by a duly executed Will-deed dated 3oth March, 1949, according to which, after his death, the petitioner No. 1 was to be owner of 1/3rd share and the petitioner No. 2 was to be owner of 1/3rd share and during their minority, their mother was to look after their properties and each of them was to pay Rs. 25/- to their mother. Their father died after some time. 3. Further, according to petitioners, their maternal uncle fraudulently got a sale-deed executed in his name from their mother on 19.11.1995 taking advantage of her illiteracy. As and when this fact came to the knowledge of petitioners, they filed a suit for cancellation of the said sale-deed based on the will-deed dated 30th March, 1949. The suit was registered as Suit No. 17 of 1996. However, the said suit was dismissed on 19.3.1997 on the ground that petitioners-plaintiffs could not produce any document, on the basis whereof, the signatures of their father, on the will-deed, could be compared, verified & examined. 4. Being aggrieved, the petitioners-plaintiffs filed Civil Appeal No. 32 of 1997 on 10.4.1997, wherein, in December, 1997, an application supported with an affidavit was filed by them under Order XLI Rule 27 CPC for adducing additional evidence inter alia stating that after filing of the appeal, petitioners-plaintiffs undertook a search of the old documents whereupon they came across certain documents transcribed in urdu language wherein the signatures of their father existed in hindi. The petitioners-plaintiffs immediately got the said document translated into hindi and showed the same to their counsel and only then it came to their knowledge that the said document was a partition-deed dated 6.1.1944 executed by their father which contained his signatures. The aforesaid document was discovered only on 21.12.1997 and was not in their knowledge prior to that date. 5. The respondents filed objection to the aforesaid application inter alia stating that the alleged partition-deed dated 6.1.1944 was forged and had been fabricated in connivance with one of the witnesses to the alleged will-deed namely Parmeshwar Dayal and that the contention of the petitioners-plaintiffs that the said document came to their knowledge only on 21.12.1997 is totally false. 6. Matter was heard and decided by the first appellate Court by the order impugned dated 24.4.1998. A perusal of the impugned order reveals that the only ground on which the learned first appellate Court has rejected the application under Order XLI Rule 27 is that such an application could be filed by plaintiffs for removing lacunae in their case and that none of the grounds mentioned in Order XLI Rule 27 exist in the case for permitting such document to be adduced in evidence at the appellate stage. In this regard it relied upon the pronouncement of this Court in the case of Prayag Ice and Oil Mill Aligarh v. State of U.P., (1971 ALJ 244). 7. As per the provisions of Order XLI Rule 27 (1) (aa) (b) CPC, the parties to an appeal shall not be entitled to produce additional evidence, whether oral or documentary, in the appellate Court, but, if the party seeking to produce additional evidence, establishes that notwithstanding the exercise of due diligence, such evidence was not within his knowledge or could not, after the exercise of due diligence, be produced by him at the time when the decree appealed against was passed, or the appellate Court requires any document to be produced or any witness to be examined to enable it to pronounce judgment, or for any other substantial cause, the appellate Court may allow such evidence or document to be produced, or witness to be examined. 8. 8. In the application under Order XLI Rule 27, the petitioners-plaintiffs have categorically mentioned that the partition-deed dated 6.1.1944 came to their knowledge for the first time on 21.12.1997 and as the document was in urdu, which the petitioners-plaintiffs obviously did not know, they cannot be faulted for not having discovered the same prior to 21.12.1997. It is only after dismissal of the suit on the ground, as referred earlier, the occasion arose for the petitioners-plaintiffs to search for a document containing the signature of their father, therefore, it cannot be said that they were not diligent in submitting the document earlier. 9. A perusal of the impugned order dated 24.4.1998 reveals that the application has not been dismissed on the ground that the petitioners-plaintiffs were not diligent in the matter, on the contrary, the contents of the application clearly show that they could not produce the said document earlier, as it was in urdu and not within their knowledge. 10. In my view, the first appellate Court erred in arriving at the conclusion that the application has been moved to patch up the deficiency of the case. So far the legal proposition that additional evidence cannot be adduced to patch up deficiency of the case is concerned, their cannot be dispute about the same. But in the facts of the present case, as discussed above, it cannot be said that there was any attempt on the part of the petitioners to patch up the lacunae in their case. The document came to their knowledge on 21.12.1997 itself. It was a document, which was necessary/required for just and proper adjudication of the suit as the trial Court dismissed the suit only on the ground that the petitioners-plaintiffs failed to produce any document, on the basis of which, signatures of their father on the alleged will-deed dated 30th March, 1949 could be compared and its veracity examined. The contention of petitioners-plaintiffs was that the aforesaid partition-deed dated 6.1.1944 was adduced in evidence in the partition suit filed by their mother in the year 1958 and was marked as exhibit thereto; the said suit was decreed on the basis of the aforesaid document; the petitioners were not parties to the said suit and were minors. In these circumstances, it cannot be said that they had knowledge of the aforesaid document earlier and they failed to submit the same. In these circumstances, it cannot be said that they had knowledge of the aforesaid document earlier and they failed to submit the same. Reliance placed upon Prayag Ice and Oil Mill’s case (supra) is misplaced. In the facts of the case, the partition-deed dated 6.1.1944 was a relevant/necessary document for just and proper adjudication/disposal of the suit. 11. So far as the contention that the partition-deed was a forged document is concerned, that is a question of evidence and an issue to be decided on merits at the appropriate stage. In view of the above discussions, the conditions mentioned in Order XLI Order 27 (1) (aa) (b) CPC, are clearly satisfied. Substantial justice requires that aforesaid document be allowed to be adduced in evidence at the first appellate stage for proper adjudication of the controversy. The impugned order is accordingly quashed. The application under Order XLI Rule 27 CPC is allowed. Consequences to follow. The interim order dated 6.8.1998 is vacated. The proceedings in appeal shall resume, be continued and concluded as per law. The writ petition is allowed. ——————