It is a popular contention that people have a remarkably high dependency on mobile phones and digital evidences are becoming cardinal each passing day. The electronic evidences play a crucial role and have established an entirely new era of jurisprudence. There are situations in which court rely upon the oral dissemination in a particular material fact. This helps in reaching out at some conclusions in different case laws. However, a form of Oral admission, that’s voice recording, is not admissible in the court of law and has different opinions of, when it comes to talking about the genuineness of a particular case. Such admissions are often not considered as irrelevant in the eyes of law.
Same was a contention in Joginder Kaur vs. Surjit Singh. In this case, a question that called everyone’s attention was whether the appellant, wife has been suffering from some mental disorder or any such kind of issues, continuously or spasmodically. This was put forth, to know if it’s been extended to such an extent that the trial court can grant decree for divorce or not. This case falls under the ambit of section 13(1)(iii) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 which primarily consists of certain elements. The elements being
- The party concerned must be of unsound mind or suffering from mental disorder, meaning thereby, mental illness, arrested or incomplete development of mind, psychopathic disorder or any other disorder of disability of mind and includes schizophrenia.
- The decease must be of such kind to an extent that the other party cannot reasonably live with him or her.
ABOUT THE CASE LAW
In this case, the parties got married to each other at Jallundar, as per the Sikh rite. They have a son together. The appellant here, has been suffering from split personality disorder and her behaviour was conflicting. The fact that appellant was suffering from such mental issues, was hid by her parents before marriage. They concealed the medical conditions of her and it was realised soon after marriage when she started crying and laughing on insignificant cases. There were issues that made people question her sense of etiquettes and decency. After taking great care of her mental condition and even after getting her checked by medical practitioners, she did not show signs of recovery.
However, apart from all the above mentioned scenarios, appellant denied all the material allegations and kept on contesting on how she never had any medical issues and wasn’t given any medical treatment. According to her, the in-laws were greedy and demanded dowry from her parents and mistreated her.
Several propositions were given by both the sides in detailed manner, and conclusively after taking into account the voice recording of conversation amongst the parties, the court felt the two way conversation to be of some kind of an attempt to create evidence. And that’s how the court disregarded the very recording since it didn’t have any obstruction or interruption, by virtue of which, it appeared to be a strange self created cross examination, merely done to create evidences.
The court held that any kind of recorded conversation or statement could not be taken as her admission against mental health. Thus, it was disregarded. The very genuineness of such electronic records, primarily depends upon several other factors as well. Such as:
- The evidence must be in direct conformity to the facts of the case.
- The way it was stored, or taken hold of, should be justified and mentioned
- The duration, as to for how long it has been recorded or taken into consideration
- And other miscellaneous factor that are necessary to decide upon the admissibility of any such evidence.
Thus, all such factors are to be taken into consideration while deciding upon any such admissibility.
For any help and assistance in such cases you are always open to contact the Law Office of G.S. Bagga as we will be happy to help and serve you to the best of our firm’s ability.
