JUDGMENT
[1] The four questions of law that the appellant had been granted leave to appeal under s 96 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 ("the CJA") concern an important area of the law of evidence and procedure. They are as follows:
(i) Where the contents/notations written on a document are disputed and/or alleged to have been added after the document was signed/initialled, are the contents/notations deemed proven upon the document being marked as an exhibit at trial?
(ii) Where the contents/notations written on a document are disputed and/or alleged to have been added after the document was signed/initialled, is it incumbent upon the party relying on the document and the disputed contents/notations to call the maker of the document and/or the author of the contents/notations to prove the same?
(iii) When a document is tendered and marked as an exhibit during a trial, is it incumbent upon the court to treat the entire contents of the said document as having been proven?
(iv) Where a document has been tendered and marked as an exhibit during a trial and part of its contents are disputed, is the court obliged to assess the veracity, truthfulness of the contents of the said document and the weight to be given to the said document on the basis of the oral and other documentary evidence adduced before the court?
[2] As can be seen, there is nothing novel about the questions. They relate to the trite and tested questions of burden of proof, admissibility of evidence and weight to be given to disputed documentary evidence produced and marked as exhibits during the course of the trial, the law on which is well settled and has not been the subject of any serious controversy as far as we are aware.
[3] The need for further argument before this court however arose due to the manner in which the Court of Appeal dealt with the disputed documentary evidence which may cause confusion and uncertainty at trials, bearing in mind its written grounds of judgment as reported in Pioneer Conglomerate Sdn Bhd v. Tenggara Kapital Sdn Bhd [2023] 6 MLRA 333; [2023] 5 MLJ 581, bind all courts below the Court of Appeal based on the doctrine of stare decisis.