Procedure for examination of witnesses

In every courtroom drama the lawyer paces in front of the witness box and fires questions. What the films skip is the order. Who goes first, who is allowed to ask what, and what happens when the witness cannot recall the date of a cheque? Chapter X of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023 is the rulebook for that sequence, and it decides whether a question is permitted at all.

In two minutes

A witness is examined in three stages, examination-in-chief by the party who calls them, cross-examination by the adverse party and re-examination by the calling party (BSA ss.142–143), and the Judge controls admissibility (s.141), the order of witnesses (s.140), and what a witness may use to refresh memory (ss.162–164).

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.