Civil Procedure Code - Summoning and attendance of Witness (Order 16)

There are tons of stages after plaint/WS is submitted and final judgment is given.

Below are certain stages.


In this blog We will deal with Order 16 i.e Summoning and attendance of witness.

Order 16 have 21 rules. These rules mainly deals with How to summon the witness ? Who can summon the witness ? What if witness do not appear after summons ? How Summons are to be served ? Who will bear the cost when witness appears?

All in all, it deals with below things:


Now party can give a list of witness to court to be summoned or court can sometime on it's own accord order the attendance of witness or production of documents from Witness as per Rule 14 of Order 21.


General Procedure

When Court summon on the request of parties, procedure is something like

  1. First party will submit the list of witness to court withing 15 days of settlement of issues. Court will issue summons based on list. Witness can attend without summons also as per Rule 1A

  2. Court issues the summon

  3. If witness does not appear, then court can issue proclamation or arrest warrant. (Rule 10)

  4. Even then Witness doesn't appear, then court may attach a property of that witness (Rule 12)

  5. If Witness does appear but do not give evidence or document then court can impose a fine as per Rule 19

Summary of this procedure is as below:

If Court gets angry, it can even order attachment of property as per Rule 10.

When Proclamation or Warrant for arrest is issued, then party could either attend the court or fails to appear. Below are rules dealing with both the situation.


When Court issues summon on it's own

Sometimes Court may feel that attendance of third party or stranger is required for administration of justice, in that case Court by itself issue summon to such party.

Such party has to appear and keep appearing in hearings until Court tell them otherwise.

Below is the summary when Court orders summoning on it's own accord.


Cost for Witness

Rule 2,3 and 4 deals with cost of the witness. Summary of those rules is as below:


Additional Provisions

What are the details in Summons(Date,time,place) ? Can party by itself serve a summon to witness which they want? How to serve the summon ? Can witness be asked to attend it immediately or should Court give reasonable time to witness ?

How the property be attached if ordered under Rule 10 ?

Below are Rules in Order 16.

Few more questions..

What if party appears, but refuses to give evidence ?  What if instead of witness, Court asks party(Plaintiff/defendant) to furnish evidence ?

Well, Rule 20 and 21 deals with these questions.



That's an overview of Order 16 in Civil Procedure Code.



Legalfundaa

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