The Supreme Court has clarified that Section 45 read with Section 73 of the Indian Evidence Act can be invoked only in relation to an admitted document for the purpose of comparison of signatures or handwriting.

A bench of Justice M.M. Sundresh and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma made the observation while setting aside a Telangana High Court order that had permitted a defendant to seek forensic examination of a document forming the basis of the plaintiff's case in a long-standing land dispute.

The case arose out of a 50-year-old ownership conflict concerning a parcel of land. The respondent had filed a civil suit seeking a declaration of ownership, relying on the outcome of an earlier suit from 1975. The appellant's family disputed the genuineness of a written statement from that earlie

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