Evidence and Limitation: proving facts and watching the clock
What is tested
This paper tests the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (which replaced the Evidence Act, 1872 from 1 July 2024) together with the Limitation Act, 1963. Questions ask whether a fact is relevant, whether a document is proved, and whether a claim is time-barred.
Rules that recur
- Relevancy: only facts in issue and relevant facts may be proved; res gestae covers statements forming part of the same transaction.
- Confessions: a confession to a police officer is not proved; so much of the information as distinctly leads to a fact discovered may be proved.
- Dying declaration: admissible even if not in question-answer form and unsigned, provided the maker is dead and the statement relates to the cause of death or its circumstances.
- Electronic records: a certificate is mandatory for secondary electronic evidence (Arjun Panditrao Khotkar v. Kailash Kushanrao Gorantyal, 2020).
- Burden of proof: he who asserts must prove; facts especially within a person's knowledge may be presumed against him.
- Limitation: Section 3 bars a time-barred suit even if the defence is not raised; Section 5 condones delay only in appeals and applications; Section 18 gives a fresh period from a signed acknowledgment made before expiry; Section 27 extinguishes the right to property on expiry.
Worked example
A lends ₹5,00,000 in 2018, repayable on demand. On 1 March 2021 A obtains a letter signed by the debtor acknowledging the debt. Limitation of three years runs afresh from the date of signature, so a suit filed by 1 March 2024 is in time. A letter written after the period had already run would not revive the claim.
Traps
Using Section 5 to save a suit; treating an acknowledgment given after expiry as reviving a dead claim; filing a CDR or WhatsApp export without the certificate; citing the Evidence Act without its Adhiniyam equivalent.