The evidence An act which was passed by the British parliament in the year 1972 contains a set of rules and regulations regarding admissibility of the evidence in the court of law. These provisions speak about both procedure and rights, as it provides the procedure as to how to proceed to the court or how to establish our claim before the court.
The limitation of this act does not end here, as it does not apply to army & naval law, disciplinary acts, and all the affidavits. It is well known that the Law of evidence is Procedural Law and it only applies to court proceedings but it also has a feature in its some part that makes it as Substantial Law.
The primary objective of any Judicial System irrespective of any state is to administer justice and protect the rights of the citizens.
It has been laid down in the Hindu Dharma Shastras that:
the purpose of any trial is the desire to find out the truth. To discover the truth from the contradictory claims made by two parties in a case the Hindu lawgiver took every possible precaution. The Shastras commands, that the parties coming into the court must be persuaded to admit the truth.
Manu says:
the King presiding over the tribunal shall ascertain the truth and determine the correctness of the testimonies of the witness, the description, time and place of the transaction or incident giving rise to the case as well as the usages of the country, and pronounce the true judgment”.
It is often said that there is no real concept regarding any highly developed Muslim rules of evidence. Al – Quran stresses more on justice, as justice is considered as one of the attributes of God. Therefore, the rules of evidence are advance and modern. Evidence under Muslim law is divided under the heads of oral and documentary.
The oral evidence is further sub-divided into direct and hearsay. Furthermore, the lawgivers followed the following order of merit, viz., full corroboration, the testimony of a single individual, and admission including confession. Documentary evidence was also recognized by the Ancient Muslim law. However, Oral evidence appears to have been referred to documentary.
Documents executed by a certain class of people were not accepted by the court like women, children, drunkards, criminals, etc. Besides, when documents were produced, courts insisted upon examining the party which produced them.
Before this time present enactment governing evidence’s admissibility in the court of law is a result of the British period. Before this time, the rules of evidence were based upon the local and traditional legal systems of different social groups residing in India. These rules were different for almost every social group, caste, community, etc which created chaos in the legal prevalent legal system of that time. After the advent of the British East India Company in the dominion of India was granted a royal charter by King George I in 1726 to establish Mayor’s courts in Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta. These courts followed the English rules of evidence law.
On the other hand, outside these towns in mufassil courts, there was no definite law relating to evidence. Hence, Muffasil courts were having unfettered power concerning evidence laws. This difference in laws resulted in chaos in the Muffasil courts. CJ Peacock observed in the case of R v. Khairulla that:
English Law of Evidence was not the law of the mufassil courts and it was further held that Hindu and Muslim laws were also not applicable to those courts. There being no fixed and definite rules of evidence, the administration of the law of evidence was far from being satisfactory.
This created a dire necessity for the codification of laws related to evidence. So, in the light of this whole episode British government took the first step in this respect in the year 1835 bypassing the act of 1835. A total number of eleven enactments were passed dealing with the law of evidence but none passed the test adequacy test. In 1868, a commission was formed to frame a draft code of the law of evidence. 39 sections were included in this draft code.
In the fifth report on the draft code of evidence in 1868, the commissioners admitted that most of the English laws were not suitable for Indian society. In October 1868, after adding two more sections, this draft code was introduced by Sir Henry Summer Maine and referred to a Select Committee. It was circulated for opinion to local governments and was pronounced by every legal authority to which it was submitted to be unfit to the wants of the country. The predominant objection to it was not suitable for the officers for whose use it was designed.
In the year 1870, a new bill containing 163 sections in a form different from the present Evidence Act of 1872 was prepared by Fitzjames Stephen. It is not clear if it was criticized by the people of the country for whom the law was to be passed most of whom, even the elites did not know English. Fitzjames Stephen recast it and it ultimately passed as Indian Evidence Act, 1872. When Pakistan and India gained independence on 14th and 15th August 1947 respectively, the Act continued to be in force throughout the Republic of Pakistan and India except the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
After the Independence of Bangladesh in 1971, the Act continues to be in force in Bangladesh, however, it was repealed in Pakistan in 1984 by the Evidence Order 1984 (also known as the Qanun-e-Shahadat). It applies to all judicial proceedings in the court, including the court-martial as well. However, it does not apply to affidavits and arbitration
Classification
Evidence is the only possible way by which the court can make inferences to render a decision. The definition of evidence explains that evidence is the proof of any fact in issues so without evidence there will be no possibilities to prove any fact in issues or even to establish any facts in the cases. It is very obvious that it is not much difficult task to obtain trust through violating the basic structure of law but in the course of protecting those rights Evidence, Law comes into the picture. Evidence Law tells the basic principles and rules regarding collection. So the process of evidencing any facts or proof should be governed by a well-established law to achieve speedy and fair justice.
The law of evidence is not just a fundamental principle governing the process of proof rather it also has a multidimensional purpose of governing the rules relating to the process of proof in court proceedings. While it’s moral dimension is a special asset in criminal trials as it endeavors in protecting the innocent and highlighting the guilty person to administer complete and fair justice. On the other hand, the evidence rules also have the capability to hide and prevent the truth to be disclosed in the public domain to protect the mass public interest.
Res gestae was originally used by the Romans which means to ‘acts are done or actus’. The most important principle of this doctrine is that all the facts must be described in the same transaction. Whereas transaction means a group of facts which are so connected that they can be considered as a single fact. In Layman’s language, a transaction may be considered as a series of certain acts and when all the actions are carried in the same situations at the same point of time then such situation or condition be called as the act of the same transaction. Circumstantial or indirect facts are also considered under the doctrine of res gestae as they are also forming a part of the same transaction.
In, Ratten V. Queen [1]
the victim (wife) called the police for help as her husband was holding the gun and was about to kill her but before the operator could get connected to the call and report the statements of the victim, the call disconnected. Later the police found her dead body in her house from where she called the police for help. Later the police found that the time of the call and time of death was almost the same so the call by the victim comes under the principle of res gestae. Hence the court found the husband guilty of murder and quashed his reasoning that he shot accidentally without any intention.
In, Sukhar V. State of UP [2][i]
the victim tried to alarm that the accused will shoot him in a few minutes. On hearing the alarm the witness almost reached the place of the incident. However, the victim survived and the accused was charged under section 307 of IPC (Punishment for Attempt to Murder). Despite the circumstances, in this case, being hearsay evidence, but still, the court recognized the act in the same part of the transaction and explained it to be a case of section 6 of the Indian Evidence Act. Therefore the statements of the witnesses were admissible as they formed a part of the same transaction.
Although motive and intention are the same there is a thin line of difference between them that intention is the pre-calculation or knowledge of ascertained consequences in the mind of the offender. In some cases, it is observed that sometimes motive behind the execution of a crime may be good but the intention is always bad or guilt-oriented.
In, Kundula Bala Vs State of A.P[4]: The son-in-law before his marriage demanded a piece of land from the deceased. But after the marriage, the deceased refused to transfer the ownership of the property and expressed that he would give this property to his daughter. Such inferences of the father-in-law induced the accused in committing a crime and after some time the crime commenced. The court observed that there is a strong motive with the accused of committing the crime as the father in law refused to transfer the property in the accused name.
In, Gurmej Singh Vs State of Punjab[5]: The deceased has won the election against the accused. It is also seen that they don’t have good relations and they have always had a quarrel with each other. The reason behind frequent quarrels was that the accused diverted a dirty water stream towards the house of the deceased. The court observed that there was pending litigation between them and the dirty water stream induced frustration between them. After the death of the deceased, the Court concluded that disputes related to the passage of dirty water could be the motive of the murder.
In, Rajendra Kumar Vs State of Punjab[6]: The Court held that the accused can only be convicted if the prosecution completely proves the motive and provide the supporting evidence to establish the commission of the offence by the accused.
Preparation
The Supreme Court of India interpreted ‘preparation’ as a word that denotes the action or preparation of any act and also those components which are prepared. Preparation includes arranging the essentials objects for the commission of a crime/offence.
Evidence tending to show that the accused had prepared for the crime is always admissible. Preparation does not express the whole scenario of the case rather preparation is only subjected to the arrangements made in respect of committing any act. Further, there is no mandate that preparation is always carried out but it is more or less likely to be carried out. It is very difficult to prove preparation as there is no mandate that preparation is always carried out to commit any crime. It is mostly observed that the Court draws inference with certain facts in establishing or ascertaining the preparation of crime committed.
In, Mohan Lal Vs Emperor[7]: The accused was charged for cheating as he was importing goods in Karachi port from Okha port without paying the proper custom duty as he made some arrangements with the customs department. The prosecution showed enough evidence to prove the preparation by the accused in avoiding the import duties. The Court held that the act by the accused was completely wrongful and are prohibited by the law hence the accused is liable for prepara n, appu vs state[8]: The four accused arranged a meeting to make essentials arrangements for commencing the crime. Certain facts related to the objective of the scheduled meeting were admitted which showed preparation on their part. The preparation was administered clearly that it is an intention to commit burglary and the accused were waiting for the right time to get the best opportunity to execute their preparation.
Conduct:
Section 8 of The Indian Evidence Act also defines conduct, conduct here means an external behavior of a person. To check if the conduct of a person is relevant to the incident then the court must establish a link between the conduct of a person who committed the crime and the conduct of the incident. The most important role of this part is that the relevant conduct must bring the court to a conclusion of the dispute. If the Court concluded then the conduct was previous or subsequent, it shall be checked properly by the Court.
Conduct is one of the very important pieces of evidence explained under Section 8 and such importance is only considered when this conduct is indirect form, otherwise, if the conduct is recognized indirectly then it will lose its importance.
In, Bhamara Vs State of M.P [9]: a person X was farming on his land, on seeing another person standing near to his place he called the person for some conversation. After a few moments, the conversation turned into arguments and ended up in a fight. On seeing such activity other people came to the place of the incident to stop the fight but subsequently, the offender tried escaping. But the offender was caught by some other person.
The Court found that the conduct of escaping of the offender was relevant subsequent conduct.
In, Nagesha V. State of Bihar[10]it was held by the Court if the first information is given by the accused himself, the fact of his giving information is admissible against him as evidence of his conduct.
Conspiracy:
Conspiracy means few people come together to do an act with common intention. So in the same context, a criminal conspiracy is the act of at least two or more persons to do an act that is not authorized by the law i.e., an illegal act, or to do a legal act by illegal means. Criminal Conspiracy is a kind of partnership in crime, and every member of such partnership must join the partnership by mutual agreement for executing a common plan.
There are two relevant provisions which deal with the criminal conspiracy i.e., Section 120(A) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 10 of the Indian Evidence Act talks about the things said or done by a conspirator.
In Subramaniam Swamy v. A Raja[12]the court in its judgments showed that anything doubtful cannot be considered as legal proof and such proofs are insufficient to prove any criminal conspiracy.
Magistrate duty of recording the confession- A Judicial Confession is made to the Magistrate during the judicial proceeding or at the time of court trial. Judicial Confessions are very relevant and are considered as one the most important type of confession as they are directly recorded by the court. Section 164 of CrPC empowers a magistrate to record a confession in his presence and such confession will hold enough evidentiary value that the confessor can be held guilty.
Rajasthan High Court has also held that the confession of an accused must be free, voluntary, and genuine that nothing is left with the prosecution to prove any fact then only the person can be convicted based on confession.
Conclusion:
The Law of Evidence, also known as the rules of evidence, encompasses the rules and legal principles that govern the proof of facts in a legal proceeding. These rules determine what evidence must or must not be considered by the trier of fact in reaching its decision. The trier of fact is a judge in bench trials, or the jury in any cases involving a jury.[1] The law of evidence is also concerned with the quantum (amount), quality, and type of proof needed to prevail in litigation. The rules vary depending upon whether the venue is a criminal court, civil court, or family court, and they vary by jurisdiction.