alleged, in the presence of the marginal witnesses. It was further reiterated that Ramesh Kaushik never entered into any alleged agreement to sell dated 03.02.2011. Thereafter, a reference was made to the alleged manipulations which were made in the agreement to sell, which was stated to have been made by the lawyer of Ramesh Kaushik in order to usurp the property of Ramesh Kaushik. Once the very agreement to sell was denied, the onus lays upon the plaintiff-respondent to prove issue No.1 in the affirmative. If any Handwriting Expert was to be examined, the same had to be examined in the affirmative. The reasoning given by the Trial Court that since the defendant-petitioners had examined a Handwriting Expert and as such the plaintiff-respondent was taken by surprise therefore he should be allowed to lead his evidence by examining a Handwriting Expert, is not sustainable in law. It is not a case where for the first time the agreement to sell had been denied. There was clear and complete denial regarding any alleged agreement to sell having been executed by Ramesh Kaushik. In such a case, the plaintiff-respondent had to prove the genuineness of the agreement to sell in the affirmative. Further still, one of the witnesses, namely, Abhay Kumar Goel, who was alleged to be the marginal witness of the agreement to sell, stepped into the witness box as PW2. In his cross-examination this witness specifically denied that the vendor and the vendee had put their signatures in his presence. It is only in an endeavour now to fill up the lacunae in the case as set up by the plaintiffrespondent that he wants to examine the Fingerprint Expert in rebuttal evidence. In view of the law laid down in Surjit Singh & Ors. and Avtar Singh and Anr. (supra), the same cannot be permitted.
