Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

We are unable to act on any one of the materials projected by the prosecution for the purpose of reaching a conclusion regarding the age of the petitioner as on the relevant date. The exercise of hatching or brewing up possible date or year of birth with the help of scattered answers given by the father of the petitioner, all during cross-examination, is a very unsound course to be adopted. At any rate such an exercise cannot be sustained to the detriment of the person concerned. Nor can I rely on the testimony of PW-4 who said that the accused told him in 1991 that his age was 20. Such a statement cannot be regarded as reaching anywhere near the proximity of reliability for fixing up the correct age of a person. The statement recorded under Section 161 of the Code is not permitted by law to be used except for contradicting the author of the statement. Hence it is impermissible to look into that material also. The sheet on which the statement of the accused was recorded under Section 235 of the Code contains some columns in the prefatory portion, one among them was regarding the age. The statement of the accused actually starts only after making such entries in those prefatory columns. Unless the person who filled up such prefatory columns is examined for showing how he gathered the information regarding all such columns the entries therein cannot be regarded as legal evidence. At any rate, we cannot proceed on a presumption that such columns were filled up by the accused himself.