India's law of evidence, replacing the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 — what may be proved, who must prove it, and how documents and electronic records are admitted. A curated selection; not the complete text.
Provided for study purposes. Cross-check against the official source (India Code / the relevant government gazette) before citing or relying on this text — amendments and corrections may not be reflected here.
Evidence may be given in any suit or proceeding of the existence or non-existence of every fact in issue and of such other facts as are declared to be relevant by this Adhiniyam, and of no others. This section does not entitle any person to give evidence of a fact which they are disentitled to prove by any provision of the law relating to civil procedure.
Facts which, though not in issue, are so connected with a fact in issue as to form part of the same transaction are relevant, whether they occurred at the same time and place or at different times and places.
A confession made by an accused person is irrelevant in a criminal proceeding if the making of the confession appears to the court to have been caused by any inducement, threat, coercion or promise proceeding from a person in authority, and sufficient in the opinion of the court to give the accused grounds which would appear to them reasonable for supposing that by making it they would gain any advantage or avoid any evil of a temporal nature in reference to the proceedings against them.
No confession made to a police officer shall be proved as against a person accused of any offence, and no confession made by any person while in the custody of a police officer shall be proved against them unless it is made in the immediate presence of a Magistrate. Where information is received from a person accused of an offence in the custody of a police officer, so much of that information as relates distinctly to the fact thereby discovered may be proved.
When the court has to form an opinion upon a point of foreign law, or of science or art, or as to identity of handwriting or finger impressions, the opinions upon that point of persons specially skilled in such foreign law, science or art, or in questions as to identity of handwriting or finger impressions, are relevant facts. Such persons are called experts, and the section extends to any other field, including information technology and digital evidence, where specialised knowledge is required.
Primary evidence means the document itself produced for the inspection of the court. Where a document is executed in several parts, each part is primary evidence of the document; where it is executed in counterpart, each counterpart is primary evidence as against the parties executing it. Where a number of documents are all made by one uniform process, each is primary evidence of the contents of the rest.
Secondary evidence includes certified copies given under the provisions of this Adhiniyam, copies made from the original by mechanical processes which in themselves ensure the accuracy of the copy, copies made from or compared with the original, counterparts of documents as against the parties who did not execute them, and oral accounts of the contents of a document given by some person who has himself seen it.
Nothing in this Adhiniyam shall apply to deny the admissibility of an electronic or digital record in evidence on the ground that it is an electronic or digital record, and such record shall, subject to the conditions laid down in this Adhiniyam, have the same legal effect, validity and enforceability as other documents.
Any information contained in an electronic record which is printed on paper, or stored, recorded or copied in optical or magnetic media or a semiconductor memory, produced by a computer or a communication device, shall be deemed to be a document and is admissible in any proceedings without further proof or production of the original, provided the conditions specified in this section are satisfied. A certificate in the prescribed form, signed by the person in charge of the computer or communication device and by an expert, must accompany the electronic record.
Whoever desires any court to give judgment as to any legal right or liability dependent on the existence of facts which they assert must prove that those facts exist. When a person is bound to prove the existence of any fact, it is said that the burden of proof lies on that person.
The burden of proof in a suit or proceeding lies on that person who would fail if no evidence at all were given on either side.
When the question is whether the commission of suicide by a woman had been abetted by her husband or any relative of her husband, and it is shown that she had committed suicide within a period of seven years from the date of her marriage and that her husband or such relative had subjected her to cruelty, the court may presume, having regard to all the other circumstances of the case, that such suicide had been abetted by her husband or by such relative.
When the question is whether a person has committed the dowry death of a woman, and it is shown that soon before her death that person had subjected her to cruelty or harassment for, or in connection with, any demand for dowry, the court shall presume that such person had caused the dowry death.
The court may presume the existence of any fact which it thinks likely to have happened, regard being had to the common course of natural events, human conduct, and public and private business, in their relation to the facts of the particular case. The court shall also have regard to whether, in the circumstances of the particular case, the presumption ought to be drawn at all.
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