17
as evidence or may, without any such order having been made, admit such a statement in evidence-
(a) notwithstanding that the maker of the statement is available but is not called as a witness;
i
(b) notwithstanding that the original document is not produced, if in lieu thereof there is produced a copy of the original document or of the material part thereof certified to be a true copy in such manner as may be specified in the order or as the court may approve, as the case may be.
(3) Nothing in this section shall render admissible as evidence any statement made by a person interested at a time when proceedings were pending or anticipated involving a dispute as to any fact which the statement might tend to establish.
(4) For the purposes of this section, a statement in a document shall not be deemed to have been made by a person unless the document or the material part thereof was written, made or produced by him with his own hand, or was signed or initialled by him, or otherwise recognized by him in writing as one for the accuracy of which he is responsible.
(5) For the purpose of deciding whether or not a state- ment is admissible as evidence by virtue of the foregoing provisions, the court may draw any reasonable inference from the form or contents of the document in which the statement is contained, or from any other circumstances, and may, in deciding whether or not a person is fit to attend as a witness, act on a certificate purporting to be the certificate of a registered medical practitioner, and where the proceedings are with a jury, the court may in its discretion reject the statement notwithstanding that the requirements of this section are satisfied with respect thereto, if for any reason it appears to it to be inexpedient in the interests of justice that the statement should be admitted.
Weight to
to evidence.
28B.-(1) In estimating the weight, if any, to be attached to a statement rendered admissible as evidence by section be attached 28A, regard shall be had to all the circumstances from which any inference can reasonably be drawn as to the accuracy or otherwise of the statement, and in particular to the question whether or not the statement was made contem- poraneously with the occurrence or existence of the facts stated, and to the question whether or not the maker of the statement had any incentive to conceal or misrepresent facts.
(2) For the purpose of any rule of law or practice requiring evidence to be corroborated or regulating the manner in which uncorroborated evidence is to be treated, a state- ment rendered admissible as evidence by section 28A shall not be treated as corroboration of evidence given by the maker of the statement.
280. Subject as hereinafter in this Part provided, in any proceedings, whether civil or criminal, an instrument to the validity of which attestation is requisite may, instead of being proved by an attesting witness, be proved in the manner in which it might be proved if no attesting witness were alive :
Provided that nothing in this section shall apply to the proof of wills or other testamentary documents.
Proof of
instrument to validity of which attestation
is necessary,
Presump-
tions as to
28D. In any proceedings, whether civil or criminal, there shall, in the case of a document proved, or purporting, documents to be not less than twenty years old, be made any presumption twenty which immediately before the first day of March, 1939, years old.