Dr. Rama Shankar, C.M.

Law College, Darbhanga

Subject: Evidence
Topic: Section 6: Res gestae

Res Gestae
LL.B. Question: What do you understand by rule of Res Gestae? Explain the rule in connection with
provisions of Indian Evidence Act?

INTRODUCTION

Section 6: Relevancy of facts forming part of same transaction: “Facts which, though not in issue, are so
connected with a fact in issue as to form part of the same transaction, are relevant, whether they occurred at
the same time and place of at different times and places.”

Res Gestae is a Latin term which mean “Things done”. Res Gestae is used to refer to a declaration
that is made at an event that proves the event happened because the words were uttered upon witnessing the
event.

The principle of law embodied in S.6 is usually known as the doctrine of res gestae. Facts which may
be proved, as part of res gestae, must be facts other than those in issue but must be connected with it.

The rationale behind this is the spontaneity and immediacy of such statement that there is hardly any
time for the concoction. So, such statement must be contemporaneous with the acts which constitute the
offense or at least immediately thereafter.

MEANING OF RES GESTAE

Res gestae literally means “something deliberately undertaken or done”. Res gestae has been defined
as, “Things did, or liberally speaking, the facts of the transaction explanatory of an act or showing a motive
for acting; a matters incidental to a main fact and explanatory of it; including acts and words which are so
closely connected with a main fact as will constitute a part of it, and without a knowledge of which the main
fact might not be properly understood, even speaking for themselves though the instinctive words and acts
of participants not the words and acts of participants when narrating the events, the circumstances, facts and
declaration which grow out of the main fact, and contemporaneous with it and serve to illustrate its character
or these circumstance which are the atomic and undersigned incidents of a particular litigated act and are
admissible when illustrative of such act.”1

There must be a main or principal fact or transaction, and only such declarations are admissible
which grow out of the principal transaction and serve to illustrate its character, and are contemporary with,
and derive some degree of credit from it. The main transaction is not necessarily confined to a particular
point of time, but may extend over a longer or shorter period, according to the nature and character of the
transaction.

Meaning of the word ‘Transaction’

The word ‘transaction’ used in this section may be a crime, a contract, wrong or any other subject of
inquiry which may be in issue. It includes both immediate cause and effect of an act or event, and also its

1
VinodkumarBaderbhai Patel v. State of Gujarat, 1998 INDLAW GUJ 22
collection of relevant circumstances, the other necessary antecedents of its occurrence, connected with it, at
a reasonable distance of the time, pace and cause and effect.2

A good working test of deciding what transaction is; is the proximity of time, unity or proximity of
place, continuity of actions, and community of purpose. But the main test must be continuity of action and
community of purpose.

A transaction may constitute a single incident occupying a few moments or it may be spread over a
variety of acts, declaration etc. All these constitute incidents, which though not strictly constituting a fact in
issue, accompany and tend to explain or qualify the fact in issue. All these facts are relevant only when they
are connected by the proximity of time, unity or proximity of place, continuity of action and community of
purpose or design.3

A fact in issue cannot be proved by showing that facts similar to it, but not part of the same
transaction, have occurred at the other times. Thus, when the question is, whether a person has committed a
crime, the fact that he had committed a similar crime before, is irrelevant.

A Test for Admission of Evidence Under Res-Gestae

The primary question which the judge must ask oneself is-can the possibility of concoction or
distortion is disregarded?4 The judge must first consider the circumstances in which the particular statement
was made, in order to satisfy him that the event was not concocted or distorted, and that his utterance was an
instinctive reaction to that event, thus giving no real opportunity for reasoned reflection.

In order for the statement to be sufficiently ‘spontaneous’, it must be so closely associated with the
event which has excited the statement, that it can be fairly stated that the mind of the declaring was still
dominated by the event.

To sum up, it can be laid that the test to be applied in deciding whether a hearsay statement made by a
bystander or victim indicating the identity of the attacker is admissible can be put succinctly;

1. Was the identification relevant?

2. Was it spontaneous?
3. Was there an opportunity for concoction?
4. Was there any real possibility of error?

Application of the Doctrine

The Privy Council in Ratten’s case entirely dispensed with the test of contemporaneity and adopted
the test of “spontaneity and involvement”. Like India present day rulings in England and America tend to
indicate that the utterance must be spontaneous or natural, and though not precisely contemporaneous must
be substantially so. There can be no fixed limit of time each case must depend upon its own circumstances.
How slight separation of time and place is sufficient to render evidence of a statement inadmissible.

Thus the principal of admissibility of declarations accompanying acts can be summarized as;[xxiv]

The declaration (oral and written) must relate to the act which is in issue or relevant thereto; they are
not admissible merely because they accompany an act. Moreover, the declaration must relate to and
explain the fact they accompany, and not independent facts previous or subsequent thereto unless
such facts are part of a transaction which is continuous.
2
R vs Ring A 1929 B 296
3
Amritalavs R 42 C 957
4
R vs Andrews 1987 A.C 281, H.L
 The declaration must be substantially contemporaneous with the fact and not merely the narrative of
a past. The declaration and the act may be by the same person, or they may be by a different person, e.g. the
declarations of the victim, assailant, and bystanders. In the conspiracy, riot the declarations of all concerned
in the common object is admissible.

In State of Andhra Pradesh vs. Gentela Vijayavardhan Rao the appreciable interval between the act
of carnage and magistrate’s recording the statement recorded by the magistrate was found inadmissible
under res gestae.

In Bishna vs. State of West Bengal, where the two witnesses reached the place of occurrence
immediately after the incident had taken place and found the dead body of Prankrishna and injured Nepal in
an unconscious state. One of them found the mother of Prannkrishna and Nepal weeping and heard about the
entire incident from an eye-witness and the role played by each of the appellants, their testimony was held to
be admissible under Section 6 of the Evidence Act.

In all the cases the test applied to make the evidence admissible was to consider that was the
statement was made at the spur of the moment without an opportunity to concoct and fabricate anything.
Where the judges are satisfied that the reaction was the most immediate result of the circumstances being
relevant to the facts in issue, they have allowed such evidence to be admitted.

Expansion of the Doctrine

Courts have slowly broadened the scope of this section to cases like rape, domestic violence, child
witness etc.

Domestic violence and assault cases necessarily involve a startling event; they often include the issue
of excited utterances. In these cases, it is only victims who can identify the alleged culprit. So such
testimony of the victims must be admitted.

In India, women may not react just after the crime of rape or sexual violence because they are under
the influence of such gruesome event that they do not respond immediately. It is possible that they respond
after a day or two but such statement spoken can still be admitted under res gestae. If it can be proved that
the victim was still under the stress of shock then such a statement can be admitted.

Usually, cases of rape take place in isolation. So there is no eye witness to such an event. Rape and
domestic violence cases are different than any other crime.

The testimony of children is often the subject of excited utterance debate.5 In Uttam Singh vs. State
of Madhya Pradesh,6the child witness was sleeping with the deceased father at the relevant time of the
incident and was awakened by the sound of the fatal blow of the axe on the neck of the deceased. Seeing it,
the child shouted to his mother for help by naming the accused as the assailant.

On hearing the sounds the mother and sisters of the child and other witnesses gathered at the spot.
This evidence was held to be admissible as a part of the same transaction as such shout was the natural and
probable as per the facts of the case. In this case, if child witness failed to react on the spot but spoke later, it
could still be admissible under sec 6.

CONCLUSION

5
See generally Lucy S. McGough, Child Witnesses: Fragile Voices in the American Legal System 126-88 (1994) (discussing the
relationship between hearsay and child witnesses in both civil and criminal contexts); Nancy Walker Perry & Lawrence S.
Wrightsman, The Child Witness: Legal Issues and Dilemmas 169-73 (1991) (discussing the challenges courts face with respect to
hearsay rulings when dealing with child witnesses).
6
2002 INDLAW MP 79
 Court has always minded that this doctrine should never be expanded to an unlimited extends. That
is why Indian courts have always considered the test of “continuity of the transaction”. Any statement which
was made after a long time gap and which was not a reaction to the event is not admissible under Sec.6 of
the Evidence Act.

But courts have permitted certain statement which was spoken after a long time gap from the
occurrence of the transaction because there was sufficient proof that the victim was still under the stress of
excitement and so whatever was said was as a reaction to the event.

The strength of sec. 6 lies in its vagueness. The word transaction used in this section is not distinct. It
varies from case to case. Each case in criminal law should be judged according to its own merit. When it is
proved that the evidence forms part of the same transaction it is admissible under sec. 6 but whether it is
reliable or not depends on the discretion of the Judge.

Bibliography
1. Textbook on the Indian Evidence Act by K D Gaur (Author)
2. The Law of Evidence by Ratanlal and Dhirajlal
3. Lectures on Law of Evidence by Dr. Rega Surya Rao