Jagmail Singh & Anr. v. Karamjit Singh & Ors.
Background
The appellants claimed ownership of land based on a 1989 Will, but the original document had been handed over to a village revenue official (patwari) years earlier for recording a mutation and could no longer be traced. They sought the trial court's permission to prove the Will through secondary evidence (such as a copy), but the High Court repeatedly held that they first had to conclusively establish the Will's existence before secondary evidence could even be considered.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that Sections 65 and 66 of the Evidence Act only require a party to lay a reasonable foundation, showing the original was in the possession of a person who, after notice, failed to produce it, or that it was lost, before secondary evidence can be admitted; conclusively proving the document's existence and authenticity is a matter for the trial itself, not a pre-condition to admitting secondary evidence. On the facts, witness testimony (including from the scribe of the Will) and the two patwaris' evasive responses about the lost document were enough to meet this threshold. The High Court's stricter approach was held to be a patent error of law, the appeal was allowed, and the appellants were permitted to lead secondary evidence, with the Court clarifying this does not by itself prove the Will's genuineness, which will still need to be established at trial.
Lesson Learnt
If an important document like a Will is lost or is in someone else's possession who won't produce it despite notice, the law allows proving it through a copy or other secondary evidence: you don't have to first win the very point you are trying to prove before you're even allowed to present your evidence.