RIGHT
TO INFORMATION & EVIDENCE
This is
a time when lot of information is being gathered with the help of RTI Act. In
fact there are specialists in the field popularly known as RTI Activists.
Without going into the motive of the RTI Activists and thinking purely from legal
point of view the question arises is “Does the information gathered under the
RTI Act can be termed as a good evidence under the Evidence Act”.
The
Information given under the RTI Act is in reply to the information sought by
the Applicant under the RTI Act. Thus reply is correlated to the query and has
to be in context of information that is sought. Thus any reply can never be
read in isolation and has to be read along with the information sought.
Further, the information may not be complete and it is only based on what is
there in record and is in reply to the query and therefore it is important to
have the copy of the documents based on which the information is provided. This
certified copy can be termed as good evidence.
Section
79 of the Indian Evidence Act reads as under:
“The
Court shall presume to be genuine every document purporting to be a
certificate, certified copy, or other document, which is by law declared to be
admissible as evidence of any particular fact, and which purports to be duly
certified by any officer of the Central Government or of a State Government, or
by any officer in the State of Jammu and
Kashmir who is duly authorized there to by the Central Government:
Provided
that such document is substantially in the form and purports to be executed in
the manner directed by law in that behalf.
The
Court shall also presume that any officer by whom any such document purports to
be signed or certified, held, when he signed, the official character which he
claims in such paper”.
Any
person, who obtains the information under the Right to Information Act may
either receive incomplete or complete information. It is, therefore, that when
the informant is required to prove the case before any authority, or judicial
authority, the same has to be proved completely by discharging the
"onus". The Public Information officer is parting with the
information that is available on record, but the supplied information, although
issued by the public authority remains "uncorroborated".
Under
Section 2 (j) (ii) of the RTI Act, the applicant can ask for certified copies
of the documents or records. This certified copy of the document giving
information can be admitted in the Court as Secondary Evidence. Note that under
the RTI Act, the right to information includes the right to inspection of work,
documents and records; taking notes, extracts or certified copies of documents
or records; and taking certified samples of material held by the public
authority or held under the control of the public authority. A citizen has a
right to obtain information from a public authority in any relevant form
including in the form of diskettes, floppies, tapes, video cassettes or in any
other electronic mode or through print-outs provided such information is
already stored in a computer or in any other device from which the information
may be e-mailed or transferred to diskettes etc.
Information
obtained under the RTI Act is part of the documents held by Public Authority,
who are Gazetted officers. A certified copy of a document received by virtue of
RTI Act is secondary evidence as provided under Section 63 of Evidence Act,
1872. It can be used as Secondary Evidence in Court, since it is part of the
Government records and provided by Govt. Authorities, certified under Govt.
Seal.
For
information obtained under the Act to be admissible in Court, it is essential
that a certified copy of the same is obtained. The information can become
important evidence and it can be used for proving one’s stand in Court. Hence, it is advisable to base the pleading
based on such information and ask the parties involved in a litigation to
produce the document by way of discovery as provided under the provisions of
Civil Procedure Code. Once, the documents are placed in compliance with the
order of the court, it can be treated as authenticated and genuine documents.
However, such documents placed on record by way of discovery are still required
to be either proved or disproved as provided under the Indian Evidence Act. The
"relevant fact" has to be established and proved.
These
days the Courts are allowing information obtained under RTI as evidence in an
increasing number of cases. In fact in one of the recent cases Madhya Pradehs
High Court held that “certified copy of documents obtained under Right to
Information Act 2005 can be admitted as secondary evidence” (Narayan Singh vs
Kallaram @ Kalluram Kushwah decided on 19 March, 2015, Writ Petition No.
7860/2014) it held that Clause
(f) of Section 65 of Evidence Act makes it crystal
clear that a certified copy permitted under the Evidence
Act or by any other law in force can
be treated as secondary evidence. Right to Information
Act, in courts view, falls within the
ambit of "by any other law in force in India". The definition of
"right to information" makes it clear that certified copies of
documents are given to the citizens under their right to
obtain information. In courts view, the court below has rightly opined
that the documents can be admitted as secondary evidence. Hon’ble Court did not
see any merit in the contention that the documents obtained under the Act of
2005 are either true copies or attested copies. Court held that the definition
aforesaid shows that the same are certified copies. Even otherwise, it is
interesting to note that in Black Dictionary, the meaning of "certified
copy" is as under:-
"Certified copy" - a copy of
a document or record, signed or certified as a true copy by the officer to
whose custody original is entrusted."
The
Court further held that “Since
the documents are covered under section 65 of the Evidence Act, there was no
need to compare the same with the originals”.
Thank you for sharing such informative information about Evidence act in India. This is very helpful blog on Evidence act in India. I will come here again for getting more information.
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You are right . But in my argument , the court denied it's authenticity as it was not proved by issuing authority in the court . I'm going to file appeal .
ReplyDelete