Exclusion of oral by documentary evidence. Article 102 provides that where the terms of a contract, or a grant, or of any other disposition of property, have been reduced to the form of a document, and

Case Laws December 08, 2023

Chapter VI of Qanun-e-Shahadat Order, 1984 relates to exclusion of oral by documentary evidence. Article 102 provides that where the terms of a contract, or a grant, or of any other disposition of property, have been reduced to the form of a document, and in all cases in which any matter is required by law to be reduced to the form of a document, no evidence shall be given in proof of the terms of such contract, grant or other disposition of property, or of such matter, except the document itself, or secondary evidence of its contents in cases in which secondary evidence, upon satisfaction of conditions prescribed, is admissible. Likewise, Article 103 provides that where the terms of a contract are in writing and proved according to the mode provided no evidence of any oral agreement or statement shall be admitted as between the parties to any such instrument or their representatives-in-interest, for the purposes of contradicting, varying, adding to, or subtracting from, its terms.

Article 113 of the Act provides that for the purposes of specific performance of a contract limitation shall commence where the date is fixed for the performance from that date, or, if no such date is fixed, when the plaintiff has notice that performance is refused.

In so far as the argument that the respondent having not proved the return of earnest money petitioner should have been allowed the return of the earnest money, suffice it to observe that the main relief of enforcement of agreement having been declined, because of bar of limitation with respect to the suit for specific performance or alternatively for the return of earnest money, the same could have been instituted within three years from the fixed date. This not having been done, both reliefs could not be allowed and were rightly so declined. The argument that the court in equitable jurisdiction could order the return of earnest money is without substance. Of course, the court could have allowed the return of money provided the suit itself was not barred by time and having recorded the findings concurrently that the suit was not within time and was filed after more than three years after the expiry of limitation, the petitioner was not entitled to any such relief.