TMI Blog1944 (4) TMI 14X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... rtain facts by a civil Court is relevant before the criminal Court when it is called upon to give a finding on the same facts or vice versa? The Evidence Act being exhaustive, the answer to this question depends upon the correct interpretation of the relevant provisions contained in that Act regardless of the fact whether the conclusion at which one ultimately arrives is in accordance with what was characterized before us during the arguments at the Bar to be a commonsense view of things or not. In. construing a statute like the Evidence Act, where any fact intended to be established has to be in accordance with the scheme of the Act, found to be relevant under a provision contained in the Act before it can be allowed to be proved, any argu ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... quite clear that the mere existence of a judgment in the present case is not relevant. Learned Counsel for the petitioner saw this difficulty and wished to rely on Section 11 of the Act. But I cannot see how could that section have any application when the existence of that judgment as apart from any finding contained therein or even the finding itself could neither be inconsistent with any fact in issue or a relevant fact. Nor could such judgments either by themselves or in connexion with other facts make the existence or nonexistence of any fact in issue or relevant fact in any subsequent proceedings highly probable or improbable. This section only refers to certain facts which are either themselves inconsistent with, or make the existen ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... in In re N.F. Markur A.I.R. 1916 Bom. 163 that the prior judgment of a civil Court in regard to the same fact would be relevant. According to that learned Judge, where the civil liability is determined by a civil Court, the judgment of that Court would be best evidence of the civil rights of the parties. That may be so but that was not the question which the learned Judge was called upon to decide. The judgment is silent on the real question that awaited his decision as to how the finding of the civil Court would be relevant in a criminal Court. In that judgment, the sentence containing the reflection to the effect that the existence of the judgment of the civil Court was clearly a relevant fact, draws no distinction, if I may say so ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... y. There appears to be no sound reason for that view. To hold that when a party has been able to satisfy a civil Court as to the justice of his claim and has in the result succeeded in obtaining a decree which is final and binding upon the parties, it would not be open to criminal Courts to go behind the findings of the civil Court is to place the latter without any valid reason in a much higher position than what it actually occupies in the system of administration in this country and to make it master not only of cases which it is called upon to adjudicate but also of cases which it is not called upon to determine and over which it has really no control. The fact is that the issues in the two cases although based on the same; facts (and s ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
|
