The Supreme Court bench comprising of Justices L Nageswara Rao and Hemant Gupta delivered a judgement on March 19, 2020 declaring that there is no need to file an application seeking permission to produce secondary evidence.
The said decision was taken in the case of Dhanpat v. Sheo Ram (deceased through Legal Representatives). The case was a Civil Appeal in which the validity of Will was in Question.
In a partition suit the defendants had produced a will to deny the claim of the plaintiff for share in the ancestral property. The certified copy of the will was produced before the court as the original was lost.
The appellant raised the question in the Supreme Court to which the Bench said:
There is no cross-examination of any of the witnesses of the defendants in respect of loss of original Will. Section 65 of the Evidence Act permits secondary evidence of existence, condition, or contents of a document including the cases where the original has been destroyed or lost. The plaintiff had admitted the execution of the Will though it was alleged to be the result of fraud and misrepresentation. The execution of the Will was not disputed by the plaintiff but only proof of the Will was the subject matter in the suit. Therefore, once the evidence of the defendants is that the original Will was lost and the certified copy is produced, the defendants have made out sufficient ground for leading of secondary evidence.
The bench further observed that there was no need for application for producing secondary evidence.
"There is no requirement that an application is required to be filed in terms of Section 65(c) of the Evidence Act before the secondary evidence is led. A party to the lis may choose to file an application which is required to be considered by the trial court but if any party to the suit has laid foundation of leading of secondary evidence, either in the plaint or in evidence, the secondary evidence cannot be ousted for consideration only because an application for permission to lead secondary evidence was not filed."
On merits, the Court found that the execution of the Will was proved in terms of Section 68 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 and dismissed the appeal.
Secondary Evidence:
Secondary evidence is evidence that has been reproduced from an original document or substituted for an original item. For example, a photocopy of a document or photograph would be considered secondary evidence. Another example would be an exact replica of an engine part that was contained in a motor vehicle. If the engine part is not the very same engine part that was inside the motor vehicle involved in the case, it is considered secondary evidence.
Courts prefer original, or primary, evidence. They try to avoid using secondary evidence wherever possible. This approach is called the best evidence rule. Nevertheless, a court may allow a party to introduce secondary evidence in a number of situations.
After hearing arguments by the parties, the court decides whether to admit secondary evidence after determining whether the evidence is in fact authentic or whether it would be unfair to admit the duplicate. However, when a party questions whether an asserted writing ever existed, or whether a writing, recording, or photograph is the original, the trier of fact makes the ultimate determination. The trier of fact is the judge if it is a bench trial; in a jury trial, the trier of fact is the jury.
