{"id":17585,"date":"2023-11-30T04:12:45","date_gmt":"2023-11-29T22:42:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=17585"},"modified":"2025-04-05T05:18:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T23:48:11","slug":"evidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/evidence\/","title":{"rendered":"Secondary Evidence under the Indian Evidence Act, 1872"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>What is Primary Evidence?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is covered by\u00a0Section 62 of the Evidence Act and is considered the\u00a0highest class of evidence.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Primary evidence, also known as best evidence,\u00a0refers to the actual documents produced for the court\u2019s inspection.<\/li>\n<li>It is\u00a0admissible without prior notice and\u00a0takes precedence over secondary evidence.<\/li>\n<li>As per Section 62,\u00a0when the document itself is produced for the inspection of the court,\u00a0it is called the primary evidence. If\u00a0the document is in parts, then\u00a0each part forms the\u00a0primary evidence.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Example: Birth Certificate issued by a Government authority.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>About Secondary Evidence under the Indian Evidence Act, 1872<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is defined under\u00a0Section 63 of the Evidence Act.<\/li>\n<li>It\u00a0can only be introduced if primary evidence is not available,\u00a0and\u00a0the\u00a0reason for its absence\u00a0must be explained.<\/li>\n<li>It is considered a\u00a0substitute for the original or\u00a0primary evidence.<\/li>\n<li>It is generally considered to be of\u00a0lower evidentiary value\u00a0compared to primary evidence.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>However,\u00a0if primary evidence is unavailable and the reason for its absence\u00a0is explained,\u00a0secondary evidence may be admitted in court.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Different types of secondary evidence\u00a0are Certified copies, Copies prepared by mechanical process , Counter foils , Photographs , Xerox copy ,\u00a0Photostat copy , Carbon copy , Typed copy , Tape records, Counterparts ,\u00a0Oral accounts , Registration copy, etc.<\/li>\n<li>Example: Copy of the 10th mark sheet with Date of Birth or identification proofs like Voter Card or Aadhar Card as secondary evidence for a lost birth certificate.<\/li>\n<li>Principles laid down by the Supreme Court for examining the admissibility of secondary evidence:\n<ul>\n<li>The law requires the\u00a0best evidence to be given first, that is, primary evidence.<\/li>\n<li>Section 63 of the Evidence Act\u00a0provides a list of the kinds of documents that can be\u00a0produced as secondary evidence, which is admissible only in the absence of primary evidence.<\/li>\n<li>If the original document is available, it\u00a0has to be produced and proved in the manner prescribed for primary evidence.\u00a0So long as the best evidence is within\u00a0the possession or can be produced, or can be reached,\u00a0no inferior proof could be given.<\/li>\n<li>A party must endeavor to adduce primary evidence of the contents, and\u00a0only in exceptional cases will secondary evidence be admissible. The\u00a0exceptions\u00a0are designed to\u00a0provide relief when a party\u00a0is\u00a0genuinely unable to produce the original\u00a0through no fault of that party.<\/li>\n<li>When the non-availability of a document is sufficiently and properly explained, then the secondary evidence can be allowed.<\/li>\n<li>Secondary evidence could be given when the party cannot produce the original document for any reason not arising from his default or neglect.<\/li>\n<li>When the copies are produced in the absence of the original document, they become good secondary evidence. Still, there\u00a0must be foundational evidence that the alleged copy is a true copy of the original.<\/li>\n<li>Before producing secondary evidence of the contents of a document, the non-production of the original must be accounted for in a manner that can bring it within one or other of the cases provided for in the section.<\/li>\n<li>Mere production and marking of a document as an exhibit by the Court cannot\u00a0be held to be due proof of its contents.\u00a0It has to be proved in accordance with the law.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1) What is the Indian Evidence Act, 1872?<\/h3>\n<p>The Indian Evidence Act, 1872 is a piece of legislation that governs the rules and regulations related to the admissibility, relevancy, and credibility of evidence in Indian courts. It outlines the procedures and guidelines for presenting evidence in both civil and criminal cases in the Indian legal system. The Act aims to ensure fairness, transparency, and consistency in the judicial process by establishing standards for the types of evidence that can be considered by the courts and how they should be presented and evaluated.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.livelaw.in\/supreme-court\/principles-on-admissibility-of-secondary-evidence-supreme-court-explains-243306\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Principles On Admissibility Of Secondary Evidence : Supreme Court Explains<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Secondary Evidence is defined under Section 63 of the Evidence Act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":17586,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17585","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}