EMPEROR Vs. BHAGWANDAS TULSIDAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The accused are being tried for the murder of one Dharamsey, and Mr. Haji, the learned Counsel for two of the accused, wants to tender in evidence the Coroner's inquisition based on the verdict of the jury at the inquest. The learned committing Magistrate admitted it in spite of the objection urged on behalf of the prosecution. He held it to be relevant under Section 42 of the Indian Evidence Act as a judgment in rent, relating to a matter of a public nature, relying upon the following observation in para. 1767 on p. 1111 of Taylor on Evidence (twelfth edition): The general admissibility of inquisitions rests upon the ground that they contain the result of inquiries made under competent authority concerning matters in which the public is interested.

(2.) This may apply to inquisitions like "the survey and report made by a surveyor in discharge of a duty imposed upon him by statute", as held in Evans V/s. Merthyr Tydfil, Urban Council [1899] 1 Ch. 241. The learned Magistrate has also referred to Taylor's remark in para. 1674 (on p. 1051) that: Inquisitions in lunacy, inquisitions post mortem, or other inquisitions, which though regarded as judgments in rem, so far as to be admissible in evidence of the facts determined against all mankind, are considered as not conclusive evidence.

(3.) In the passage which precedes this remark, the learned author says (p. 1050): ...a judgment in rem furnishes conclusive proof of the facts adjudicated, as well against strangers as against parties, but this rule does not extend to criminal convictions, which are subject to the same rules of evidence as ordinary judgments inter partes.