Month: September 2013

Admissibility of evidence: Illegally procured document

Evidence procured by illegal means

Even if a document is procured by improper or illegal means, there is no bar to its admissibility if it is relevant and its genuineness is proved.

A forged letter used to make complaint:

A letter dated 22.4.2011 purported to have been written by Shri M.A. Khan, M.P., suggests that various properties had been purchased by respondent no.2 as benami and the copies of the sale deeds etc. filed alongwith the said letter fortify the same. The Government of India wrote a letter to the Chief Secretary, Govt. of A.P. on 5.5.2011 to conduct an enquiry in respect of alleged disproportionate assets Continue reading “Admissibility of evidence: Illegally procured document” →

Proof of attestation of Will.

Will: Conditions for proper and legal attestation.

Should the two attesting witnesses be present at the same time when the will is executed?

Evidence Act, 1872; Section 68.

View of Kerala High Court:

For valid attestation unlike the English Law, as it stood before the amendment of English Wills Act, 1837 Indian Law does not insist that the two attesting witnesses also should be present at the same time when the will is executed. It is possible for executing a will with proper attestation by the attesting witnesses signing at different times and without knowing each other. Since the requirement of Section 63 Succession Act is only that there should be two attesting witnesses in the will and that there is no insistence that the attesting witnesses also should be present at the same time, we find it difficult to extend the provision of Section 68 of the Evidence Act so as to make it obligatory even when only one attesting witness is called and the propounder is not in a position to call the other witness, to elicit a fact which the attesting witness called may not be in a position to speak honestly before the court. We feel that such an insistence would only be an addition of an unnecessary technicality and that it may lead to witness called for proving, execution and attestation of wills deposing falsehood before the court. In this view, we find it difficult to follow the decisions reported in AIR 1946 Bom 12; AIR 1949 Bom 266, AIR 1974 AP 13; AIR 1981 Mad 252.