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Res gestae (a Latin phrase meaning "things done") is an exception to the rule against Hearsay evidence. Res gestae is based on the belief that because certain statements are made naturally, spontaneously and without deliberation during the course of an event, they leave little room for misunderstanding or misinterpretation upon hearing by someone else (i.e. by the witness who will later repeat the statement to the court) and thus the courts believe that such statements carry a high degree of credibility. Statements which can be admitted into evidence as Res gestae fall into three headings:

    1. Words or phrases which either form part of, or explain a     
        physical act,
    2. Exclamations which are so spontaneous as to belie 

        concoction, and
    3. Statements which are evidence as to someone's state of mind.
(In some jurisdictions the Res gestae exception has also been used to admit police sketches.)

The principle underlying Section 6, the following is sometimes termed as res gestae. This phrase means simply a transaction, ''thing done'', ''the subject matter'', ''res gestae” of any case properly consists of that portion of actual world’s happenings out of the right or liability, complained or asserted in the proceeding, necessarily, arises. Apparently the phrase is well established in the Evidence Act 1950. It is necessary therefore, to understand what it really means. That has been used in two senses. In the restricted sense it means world’s happening out of which the right or liability in question arises. In wider sense it covers all the probative facts by which res gestae are reproduced to the tribunal where the direct evidence of witness or perception by the court is unattainable. In restricted meaning res gestae imports the conception of action by some person producing the effects for which the liability is sought to be enforced in action. To be clear, in the restricted sense ''facts which constitute the res gestae must be such as so connected with the very transaction or fact under investigation as to constitute a part of it''.

Whatever act or series of acts constitute, or in point of time immediately accompany and terminate in. The principal act charged as an offence against the accused from its inception to its consummation and whatever may be said by either of the parties during the continuance of the transaction, with reference to it, including herein what may be said by the suffering party, though in absence of the accused during the continuance of the action or the latter, form part of the principal transaction and may be given in evidence as part of res gestae of it. While, on the other hand, statements made by the complaining party, after all action on the part of wrong-doer has ceased and some time has elapsed do not form part of res gestae and should be excluded.

Section 6 of the Evidence Act 1950 states that,''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 or at different times and places''
This section admits those facts the admissibility of which comes under the technical expression res gestae [i.e., the things done (including words spoken) in the course of a transaction], but such facts must ''form part of the same transaction.'' If facts form part of the transaction which is the subject of enquiry, manifestly evidence of them ought not to be excluded. The question is whether they do form part or are too remote to be considered really part of the transaction before the Court. A transaction is a group of facts so connected together as to be referred to by a single legal name, as a crime a contract, a wrong or any other subject of inquiry which may be in issue. Roughly, a transaction may be described as any physical act, or a series of connected physical acts, together with the words accompanying such act or acts. Every fact which is part of the same transaction as the fact in issue is deemed to be relevant to the fact in issue although it may not be actually in issue, and although if it were not part of the same transaction it might be excluded as hearsay.


Prepared By: THAN CHONG SENG (JOHNSON)   A122879




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law of evidence