09 May

Evidence-Basis of a Strong Criminal Defense | Criminal Attorney in Delhi NCR | Criminal Lawyer in Delhi NCR |

in Anticipatory Bail & Regular Bail, Criminal Law, High Court, Legal Advice, Uncategorized

The term ‘evidence’ as it relates to investigation, speaks to a wide range of information sources that might eventually inform the Court to prove or disprove points at issue before the tried fact. Sources of evidence can include anything from the observations of witnesses to the examination and analysis of physical objects. People die of natural causes every day, but sometimes there is a foul play involved and a death turns into a murder case. In such a case the police often start checking a suspect and they will likely base their conclusion on a couple of key pieces of evidence. Criminal evidence is any crime-related information on which an investigator can base a choice or make a determination and it consists of supposed facts and knowledge that relates to a specific crime or perpetrator. Evidence is the product of investigation. The evidence and its appropriate appreciation is the basis to prepare a strong criminal defense on behalf of the accused in a criminal case and thus cannot be ignored.

Evidence is a Conclusive Proof to Determine & Probe the Commission of an Offense

A criminal offense was committed
A specific person committed that crime.

In India, if an individual is accused of murder he is tried under the penal code. There are mainly three Acts constituting the criminal legal codes:

Indian Penal Code (IPC) of 1860
Code of Criminal Procedure, (Cr. P.C) of 1973
Indian Evidence Act (IEA) of 1872

According to the definition given in the Indian Evidence Act, evidence in a criminal case are divided into three categories i.e. Oral Evidence, Documentary Evidence and Circumstantial Evidence respectively.
Oral Evidence: It is the evidence that is mainly words spoken by mouth. This will be proved without the support of any documentary evidence, provided it is acceptable. Primary Oral evidence is the evidence that has been personally heard or seen or gathered by the senses of a witness. It is also called Direct evidence as defined by Section 60 of the Indian Evidence Act. Whereas, Indirect or Hearsay evidence is usually not admissible before the Court of law because the person reporting the facts is not the particular witness. Section 32 and 33 of the IEA states the exceptional cases of evidence, in the criminal case of Subodh Nath & Anr vs. State of Tripura on 19th March, 2013 (Criminal Appeal No. 1551 of 2007) the facts very briefly are that on the 9th of October, 1998, Ashutosh took out his cows for grazing but did not return home till dusk. The next day Ashutoshs’ body was found lying in a jungle at Nalia Tilla with injuries everywhere on his body. His cousin, Kirpesh then lodged an FIR at the Panisagar police station and therefore the police registered a complaint and held an inquest over the body of the deceased. In course of the investigation, the police apprehended Pranajit, who was a laborer working under Ashutosh and Kirpesh. During the investigation he disclosed that Ashutosh had been killed by two appellants. His statement was recorded under Section 164 of the Cr.P.C, 1973 and on completion of the investigation; the police filed charge-sheet against the appellants.

Documentary Evidence: It is the evidence that mentions any issue described or expressed upon any material by way of letters, figures or marks or by quite one among the ways which may be used for recording the difficulty . These evidences are presented in the form of a document to prove a disputed fact before the Court. Primary document evidence includes the evidence that shows the original documents (Section 62 of the IEA), whereas secondary documentary evidence is the evidence that has copies of documents which will be presented before the Court under certain circumstances (Section 63 and 65 of the IEA).

Circumstantial Evidence: It is the evidence that decides the fate of the accused by establishing guilt or innocence through reasoning. Indirect evidence are unrelated facts that, when considered together are often used as a conclusion about something unknown. Four things are required for establishing proof by indirect evidence –
i) All the facts should be according to the idea
ii) The circumstances, from which the inference for the idea was drawn, should be fully established.
iii) The circumstances should be decisive in nature.
iv) The circumstances should serve to mean and prove only the idea proposed to be proved and will not entertain the other theory.

Evidence is simply everything that is used to acknowledge or explain the reality of submission and each evidence that is taken into account is extremely important to work out the result of a case. The evidences forms the pivotal basis for preparing a strong criminal defense on behalf of the accused in any given criminal cases.

Authored By: Adv. Anant Sharma & Anugraha Sundas