Primary and Secondary Evidence Questions and Answers

Answer: D

Neither conclusion follows. The statements say only that primary evidence and the proof of the contents of documents are discussed in the Indian Evidence Act, 1872; they give no section numbers. The conclusions assign sections, Section 61 for proof of contents and Section 62 for primary evidence, which the statements do not provide.

The section numbers are themselves correct as law (Section 61 deals with proof of contents of documents and Section 62 with primary evidence), but the question asks what follows from the statements, and the numbers do not. The keyed option is that neither follows.

Answer: A

A certified photocopy is admissible if the original is lost, stolen or destroyed and not available.

Documents are proved by primary evidence, the original itself. Under Sections 63 and 65 of the Indian Evidence Act, a copy (secondary evidence) may be given when the original has been destroyed or lost, or cannot be produced for reasons not due to the party offering it, among other listed cases.

A prosecutor's assurance, the judge having seen the original, or a copy tendered on oath are not grounds for admitting secondary evidence under the Act.

Answer: D

The one that is not secondary evidence is the document itself produced for the inspection of the Court.

Under the Adhiniyam, primary evidence means the document itself produced for the inspection of the court. Secondary evidence includes certified copies, copies made by mechanical processes that ensure accuracy and copies compared with them, counterparts, oral accounts of a document's contents by someone who has seen it, and, newly added by the Adhiniyam, oral and written admissions and the evidence of a person skilled in examining documents.

Options A, B and C are all forms of secondary evidence; only D is primary evidence.

Answer: B

Each stored recording is Primary evidence.

The Explanation to Section 57 of the BSA provides that where a video recording is simultaneously stored in electronic form and transmitted, broadcast or transferred to another, each of the stored recordings is primary evidence. Likewise, electronic records stored simultaneously or sequentially in multiple files are each primary evidence.

So the copies are not secondary or inadmissible, and the law does not split them into primary and secondary.

Answer: B

Primary evidence is the document itself produced for the inspection of the Court.

Section 57 of the BSA defines primary evidence as the document itself produced for inspection; where a document is executed in several parts or counterparts, each part is primary evidence against the parties who signed it.

A photocopy, a certified copy and an oral account of the contents are all forms of secondary evidence under Section 58.

Answer: A

Secondary evidence includes a copy made from the original by a mechanical process ensuring accuracy.

Section 58 of the BSA lists secondary evidence: certified copies; copies made from the original by mechanical processes which in themselves ensure accuracy, and copies compared with such copies; copies made from or compared with the original; counterparts; oral accounts of the contents given by someone who has himself seen the document; and admissions.

An oral account by someone who only heard about the document, an uncompared copy, and a translation by someone who does not know the original language do not qualify.