Secondary Evidence
AI Assist
Summary
Copies, photographs, certified copies, machine-made reproductions, oral or written admissions, and oral accounts by someone who has seen a document are treated as secondary evidence. They apply when the original cannot be produced or when law allows certified or mechanical copies. Such evidence may be admitted to prove the contents, but its accuracy or the link to the original may have to be proved and some oral accounts are not acceptable.
Example
Priya's shop ledger was destroyed in a fire, so she brings a photographed copy and a machine-made duplicate. The photograph and the machine copy can be used as secondary evidence if Priya proves they were made from the original; but a mere oral account of an unverified copy would not be enough.
Bare Act
Enacted textSecondary evidence includes-
(i) certified copies given under the provisions hereinafter contained;
(ii) copies made from the original by mechanical processes which in themselves ensure the accuracy of the copy, and copies compared with such copies; (iii) copies made from or compared with the original;
(iv) counterparts of documents as against the parties who did not execute them;
(v) oral accounts of the contents of a document given by some person who has himself seen it;
(vi) oral admissions;
(vii) written admissions;
(viii) evidence of a person who has examined a document, the original of which consists of numerous accounts or other documents which cannot conveniently be examined in Court, and who is skilled in the examination of such documents.
Illustrations.
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(a) A photograph of an original is secondary evidence of its contents, though the two have not been compared, if it is proved that the thing photographed was the original.
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(b) A copy compared with a copy of a letter made by a copying machine is secondary evidence of the contents of the letter, if it is shown that the copy made by the copying machine was made from the original.
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(c) A copy transcribed from a copy, but afterwards compared with the original, is secondary evidence; but the copy not so compared is not secondary evidence of the original, although the copy from which it was transcribed was compared with the original.
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(d) Neither an oral account of a copy compared with the original, nor an oral account of a photograph or machine-copy of the original, is secondary evidence of the original.
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