Keywords
Indian Evidence Act
Expert Witness
Colonial Courts
Rape Trials
Pseudo-Science
How to Cite
Abstract
In the late 19th century with the study of criminology, the new idea of positivist thought about criminal and criminal science had evolved, which brings out a scientific approach to understanding the criminal and the crime. In the case of India, Colonial distrust for Indian people pushed the colonial courts to take scientific help in court proceedings. By the 1850s, in Britain the use of forensic technology to solve a crime had become common. The judges and jurists were not scientists, or they did not have the expertise to understand the procedures of a particular crime. So, in 1872 the Indian Evidence Act was created under sec. 45 to sec. 51 which provided relevancy of opinion of a third person (an expert of a particular field) in the court, with the condition that the person had to be an ‘expert’. But the act had not clarified who an ‘expert’ is, which created much problem for the early proceedings. Even though this ‘third person’ was supposed to be an ‘expert’, his opinion was dependent on him, but its admissibility was dependent on the court. So, this article ventures through some case studies and along with a brief understanding of the act, tries to see its limitations in the name of its admissibility, its dark side as such of corruption and personal gain with pseudo-scientists and political influence and effects on its understanding. The article also speaks about this act’s possibilities and a better path to understand a crime for better judgment.
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