courts

A TV detective says the fingerprint matched and the case is over. In a real courtroom in Mumbai, that is where the argument begins. Who collected the print, who sealed it, which laboratory compared it, and can the defence question the person who did? This topic is about what a court does with forensic evidence once it arrives, and where the law stops the State from collecting it.

In two minutes

Forensic evidence enters court as expert opinion or as a scientific report; the court first asks whether it is relevant and properly proved, then decides how much weight it deserves, and it never hands the decision over to the laboratory.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Law of Evidence on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.