School Register Indicating Birth Date Of Minor Rape Victim Can't Be Disbelieved If School Headmaster Is Examined To Prove It: Karnataka High Court

The Karnataka High Court has held that entries made in school register indicating the birth date of a ward cannot be disbelieved and it is admissible evidence if the details are proved by examining the school headmaster as witness.

A division bench of Justice Sreenivas Harish Kumar and Justice C M Joshi made the observation while partly allowing the appeal filed accused Manikanta @ Pulli who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the offence under sections 376(2)(i)(n), 506 of IPC and Section 5(j)(ii)(l) r/w Sec.6 of Protection of Children From Sexual Offences Act.

One of the contentions raised by the accused in his appeal challenging the conviction order was that in spite of the fact that the prosecution produced admission register extract and examined School headmaster to prove it, it cannot be said that the prosecution was able to prove the age of the girl as 14 years on the first day of incident.

He argued that prosecution produced a mere extract of the admission register which was not even authored by the headmaster. He contended that the author of the admission register should have been examined by the prosecution to prove the victim's age.

The prosecution submitted that the extract of the school admission register, which is a public document within the meaning of section 74 of the Indian Evidence Act, suffices the requirement of proof as public documents need not be produced before the court. Moreover, headmaster of the school had issued the Register and the purpose of examining him during the trial was to prove the age of the girl.

The bench noted there are two types of documents – public and private. Section 74 of the Evidence Act specifies public documents and section 75 of the Evidence Act states that all other documents are private documents.

Noting that section 114 (e) of the Evidence Act provides for presuming that the judicial and official acts have been regularly performed and entries in a public document are made while discharging official functions, Court said "thereby a sanctity is attached to a public document. This is how proof of a public document is required to be made."

Court said headmaster was the custodian of the admission register and he was authorised to issue its extract pertaining to the victim. "He is a competent witness to speak to the contents of Ex.P8 which satisfies the definition of secondary evidence within the meaning of section 63 of the Evidence Act. Section 65 (e) of the Evidence Act states that secondary evidence may be produced when the original is a public document within the meaning of section 74 of the Evidence Act. Ex.P8 is undoubtedly an extract of the school admission register.”

Court further said that if for any reason the accused knew that victim's date of birth was incorrectly mentioned, he could have disproved the extract by producing any evidence available with him but, he failed to do so.

“It is doubtful that the schools maintain a separate register for entering the date of birth of the students and therefore if at all the school authority is required to issue a document relating to date of birth of a student, it is issued on the basis of entry of the date of birth made in the admission register. In this view Ex.P8 which stands fortified from the evidence of PW5 does not fall short of evidentiary value and it can be very much acted upon.”

Court also refused to accept the contention that the extract was information in writing collected by the investigating officer during investigation and therefore it is hit by Section 162 CrPC. It held,

“In this case Ex.P8 is just an information about date of birth. There is no information relating to crime. It is a document; just because it was collected during investigation, it cannot be said that it attracts rigour of section 162 of Cr.P.C. If the argument of Sri Hashmath Pasha is accepted, post mortem report, FSL report or any expert's opinion becomes inadmissible. This kind of interpretation cannot be given to section 162 of Cr.P.C.”

Accordingly, the court upheld the conviction but modified the sentence from life imprisonment to 10 years imprisonment.

Appearance: Senior Advocate Hashmath Pasha for Appellant for Advocate Nasir Ali.

SPP-II Vijaykumar Majage for R1

Advocate K.M.Archana for R2.

Citation No: 2024 LiveLaw (Kar) 283

Case Title: Manikanta @ Puli AND State of Karnataka & ANR

Case No: CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.1247 OF 2018

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