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7. Order 18, Rule 4 as it stood before its substitution by Act of 1999 and 2001, provided that the oral evidence of the witness had to be recorded in the presence of the Judge. By the amendment it is now to be recorded on affidavit. Earlier it had to be recorded in the manner set out in Rule 5, which was, to take it down, in the language of the Court in writing or in the presence and under the personal direction and superintendence of the Judge or from the dictation of the Judge directly on a typewriter or if the Judge for reasons recorded, directs to be recorded by a mechanism in the presence of the Judge. The purpose and object of the Amendment Acts have been considered by the Apex Court in Salem Advocates Bar Association v. Union of India, . The object of amending Order 18, Rule 4 is to subserve the larger purpose of cutting down in the disposal time of recording evidence, thereby reducing the period of disposal of the cases by dispensing with the lengthy procedure of the Court recording evidence of every witness produced before it or summoned to appear before it. The earlier procedure resulted in the trial being inordinately delayed and was one of the main reasons for the docket explosion in the courts. The amendment seeks to obviate the same by permitting examination to be on affidavit instead of the examination-in-chief being recorded by the Court.