The Evidence of Child Witnesses Should be Accepted with Due Care – Essay

The competence of a witness is determined by Section 118 of the Evidence Act.

According to the said section, every person is competent to give evidence, except when the Court considers that he or she is unable to understand the questions put to him or her, or give rational answers. Such incompetency may arise from causes like tender years, old age, disease, etc.

The proviso to Section 5 of the Oaths Act prescribes that when a witness is a child under 12 years of age and the Court considers that though he understands the duty of speaking the truth, he does not understand what oath means, the Court may dispense with the administration of oath.

But the Judge should always, when dispensing with an oath, make a clear record that he was satisfied that the child understands the duty to speak the truth and should also state his reason for thinking so.

Although the unsworn testimony of a child is admissible, it must be received with great caution.

Children of tender age, generally speaking, are pliable and their evidence can easily be shaped and moulded. They can be made to repeat glibly a story put into their mind. They do not possess the discretion to distinguish between what they have witnessed and what they have heard.

It is therefore desirable that absolute reliance should not be placed on the evidence of a solitary child witness. One should look for corroboration of the same from other circumstances in the case. The tender years of the child, coupled with other circumstances appearing in the case, for example its demeanour, unlikelihood of tutoring and so forth, may render corroboration unnecessary.

But that is a question of fact in every case. If, after carefully scrutinising the evidence, the Court comes to the conclusion that there is a great impress of truth in it, there is no bar in law in the way of accepting the evidence of a child witness.

The Court should look for corroboration as a matter of caution and not as a rule of law. That is the guiding principle in appreciation of evidence of a child witness. There is no law which says that the evidence of a child witness should not be accepted unless it is corroborated. But the rule of prudence requires corroboration.