In the case of State of Andhra Pradesh v. Gentela Vijayavardhan Rao[xxviii], the considerable distance between the act of carnage and the recording by the judge of the testimony recorded by the judge was found inadmissible under the res gestae. Res Gestae has been described as a term of protean meaning and there have been many definitions of the term. No problem of evidence is as shrouded in doubt and confusion as Res Gestae. The rule of admissibility of evidence, known as the Res Gestae Rule, has been declared unsuitable to be precisely defined, and it has been applied to so many different and unrelated situations that it has been said that the difficulty of formulating a description of Res Gestae that will serve all circumstances seems insurmountable. [vi] It would hardly be a miracle if a single teaching of Res Gestae was enough for each situation. The following judgments help to filter out the results of such facts that actually coincide with the main issue and to determine whether these statements appeared spontaneously or were fabricated or told within a later period of time in order to be admissible or not The statement may be made by the same person, the party to the crime or a third party. Because of the vague nature of the doctrine, the courts have addressed the “continuity of transaction test.” Even if some statements were not made spontaneously and included a time interval in relation to the occurrence of the incident, they may be made admissible if it is proven that the speaker was in a state of shock or excitement during the incident. Usually, evidence is subject to res gestae if it cannot be presented under another section of the Indian Evidence Act. The intention of the legislators was to avoid injustice when cases are dismissed for lack of evidence.
If a declaration in accordance with § is not allowed. 6 it may be admissible as confirmatory evidence under Article 157. The ambiguity of this doctrine is strongly criticized. Therefore, we can see that what originally began meant only acts (news) to form Res Gestae, now includes all actions or statements made during the occurrence of the crime at the same time or place of the crime or at different times in different places, is called part of the same enterprise and is therefore allowed due to the teaching of Res Gestae. Dean Wigmore comments: “The term Res Gestae is not only completely useless according to the current state of the law, but even positively harmful. It should therefore be completely rejected as a malicious element in our legal phraseology. Never talk about it. In some jurisdictions, res gestae has also been used in the approval of police sketches of potential suspects. In cases of rape or sexual offences, women are usually traumatized because they have been cruelly victimized, so it may take them a day or two to overcome the trauma and respond. These responses should also be included in the scope of the RES gestae. If it is proved that the victim was in shock, such a statement may be authorized.
It is difficult to find eyewitnesses to rape because these cases take place in isolation. Evidence of other offences committed by the accused would be relevant and admissible if there is a link between the offence prosecuted and the other offences or if both acts are part of the same transaction so that they fall within the scope of section 6. A completely independent and unrelated offence is not permitted simply because it occurred at or about the same time as the repetition of the offence during the trial. [xii] Harmful because it confused the limits of other rules. The limits of the res gestae are not easy to define. Under the Indian Evidence Act, in section 6, facts that, while not in question, are related to a fact in question in such a way that they are part of the same transaction, are relevant, whether they occurred at the same time and place or at different times and places. This falls within the scope of the res gestae. In this case, two witnesses arrived at the scene immediately after the incident and found the body of the deceased named Prankrishna and the injured Nepal in an unconscious state. One of the witnesses heard the mother of Prankrishna and Nepal sob and heard the whole scenario of an eyewitness and the role played by each of the complainants.
However, his testimony was inadmissible because it was recognized by hearsay under the doctrine of evidence. [ii] Edmund M. Morgan, Hearsay – What Is It?, 12 Wash. L. Rev. 1, 4 (1937), p. 132 (describes the expression res gestae as “inaccurate and of indefinite significance”). Judicial Observations in the Res Gestae Doctrine: The Indian judiciary has interpreted Res Gestae only as statements made at or immediately after the event, but not “at such an interval of time” that allows falsification. A testimony given by a child is often an exception to the general rule established in this doctrine. In the case of Uttam Singh v State of Madhya Pradesh,[8] when the incident occurred, the child witness was sleeping with his father and was woken up by the sound of an axe blow to his father`s neck. The child shouted for help, calling the accused an aggressor.
When they heard him screaming, members of his family and other witnesses gathered at the scene. The evidence was found admissible in the present case in the same transaction. Here, the screams from the child were considered natural and probable. It should be noted that even if the minor witness did not respond immediately but spoke later, this could be permitted under section 6 of the Indian Evidence Act. It has since been applied by the Court in several judgments and has evolved over time. It has its slight limitation in the form of the prescribed property it owns, but at the same time, in order to preserve justice, the courts have further developed this doctrine and some exceptions have been introduced. Res Gestae`s teaching has been recognized for the common good of all, so the courts must exercise every caution to ensure that it is not completely abused or expanded. Such actions and statements may fall within the doctrine of res gestae, which are contemporary in nature, which means that they must be carried out simultaneously or spontaneously, during or immediately, before or after the action, but not after the end of the action. Here, the value of time is important. Res Gestae supports not only the actual facts of the transaction and the circumstantial evidence associated with it, but also the issues that immediately precede it and have a direct random connection with it, as well as the actions that immediately follow and are so closely related to it that they are in fact part of the action, as J.McKnight explains.
State vs. Fouquette. The most complicated area of criminal justice is the evidence tool, the type of evidence that is presented for consideration in court. This is one of the principles of the Law of Proof Res Gestae. Res Gestae`s doctrine is based on the assumption that each relevant part of the chain of events is considered in the criminal justice system before the final decision of the judiciary, so that no evidence can be dismissed on the basis of irrelevant considerations, even if some technical details vary from case to case. The reason for this is the hypothesis of the doctrine of repetition in criminal law as the need to prove certain relevant facts. It is not possible to prove the entire incident without the help of some missing facts. It can be proven by another piece of evidence that has been studied and titled the teaching of Res Gestae. Res Gestae is a Latin expression that means it is part of the same transaction.
It refers to the relevant part of the event that is directly or indirectly related to the main activity of the event. Where a witness claimed describing the crime that B said: Those brawlers who took Subhashini a year ago have returned. It has been established that the moment of occurrence in relation to occurrence according to p.6 is regestae. However, a statement made at the time of an event that refers to a previous event that lasted a year is not correct. [xxiii] In this case, the perpetrator had killed his wife and daughter. The accused`s father stated that he called the accused and said about the call that he soon killed the deceased. The dispute before the court was whether this statement by the defendant`s father could be accepted under the doctrine of res gestae. Since it was not possible to determine the time of the telephone call during which the same information was transmitted, whether it was made at the same time as the commission of the offence or immediately thereafter, that evidence was declared inadmissible in accordance with that principle.
“Same transaction” means that a number of activities are linked together to present an ongoing story. The facts, which are not part of the main question, which is complementary and related to the question in such a way that it is part of the same undertaking, are called res gestae. These facts should be contemporary in nature in order for them to be admissible by the court under p. 6 of the Indian Evidence Act. Simply put, the facts surrounding the disputed fact that occurred immediately before or after the “act” are permissible under this doctrine.