Prior Convictions Of The Accused: Doctrinal Continuity Under The Indian Evidence Act And The Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam
- IJLLR Journal
- 16 minutes ago
- 1 min read
Trisha Menon, Shiv Nadar University, School of law
I. Introduction
Section 54 of the Indian Evidence Act 1872 excludes the accused's prior convictions from the guilt stage of a criminal trial. Section 14 of the same Act permits their admission where they are relevant to motive, intention, or knowledge. Both provisions operate simultaneously, and neither takes precedence over the other. This tension has never been resolved. The Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023 reproduces the same structure without attempting to fix it.
This interaction between exclusion and relevance lies at the heart of the law governing prior convictions. While the statutory rule appears to protect the accused from prejudicial reasoning based on past conduct, its practical operation permits the admission of such evidence through indirect doctrinal pathways. This essay argues that Indian law reflects continuity without conceptual resolution, preserving a framework in which the boundaries of admissibility remain uncertain and largely dependent on judicial interpretation.
A further difficulty lies in the institutional assumptions underlying the rule. The exclusion of prior misconduct was developed in England for a jury system, where lay decision- makers were considered especially vulnerable to prejudice arising from propensity reasoning. India abolished jury trials in 1962 following M Nanavati v State of Maharashtra, and criminal adjudication is now conducted entirely by judges. Yet the evidentiary structure designed to shield juries from prejudice remains unchanged. The persistence of this rule, despite the disappearance of its original rationale, underscores the extent to which Indian evidence law operates through inherited continuity rather than reconsidered principle.
