'Relevancy and admissibility are neither co-extensive nor interchangeable terms.' Discuss. 'All admissible evidence is relevant, but all relevant evidence is not necessarily admissible.' Comment.

The Foundation: What Do the Terms Mean?

To understand the distinction, one must begin with the statutory framework. Section 5 of the IEA (Section 4 of the BSA) is the gateway provision. It provides that evidence may be given of facts in issue and of such facts as are declared to be relevant, and of no others. The definition of "relevant" under Section 3 of the IEA is precise: one fact is said to be relevant to another when it is connected with the other in any of the ways referred to in the provisions of this Act relating to the relevancy of facts. This statutory definition, as V.P. Sarathi rightly points out, makes it clear that relevancy is not a matter of pure logic alone — it is a matter of legal declaration. A fact becomes legally relevant only when it is brought within any of the sections 6 to 55 of the IEA.

Relevancy, therefore, is a determination of whether a particular fact has a logical or legal connection to a fact in issue. It is the first question the Court must ask.

Admissibility, on the other hand, is the second and distinct question: whether a fact, even if declared relevant, is permitted by law to be placed before the Court as evidence. As Section 136 of the IEA (corresponding to Section 134 of the BSA) makes clear, when a party proposes to give evidence of any fact, the judge asks the party "in what manner" — that is, under which provision of the Act — the alleged fact is relevant. The judge shall admit the evidence only if he thinks the fact, if proved, would be relevant.

Logical vs. Legal Relevancy: The Two Schools

Two great juristic traditions have shaped the understanding of relevancy — the Thayer-Wigmore approach prevalent in England and the United States, and the Stephensian approach embedded in the IEA.

Under the Thayer Doctrine, the general position is one of freedom of proof: all facts logically relevant — that is, all facts having any rational probative value — are admissible, unless some specific rule forbids their reception. Wigmore restated this as two axioms: first, none but facts having rational probative value are admissible; and second, all facts having rational probative value are admissible unless some specific rule forbids it. Rule 401 of the United States Federal Rules of Evidence expressly adopts this approach.

Under the Indian approach, however, the position is more restrictive. No logically relevant fact is legally relevant unless it has been specifically declared relevant under one of the sections of Chapter II of the IEA (sections 6 to 55). As Sarathi explains, the stages through which a fact passes in India are: first, logical relevancy; second, legal relevancy; and third, admissibility. A fact that fails at the second stage — that is, which cannot be brought within any section of the Act — simply cannot be used as evidence, regardless of how logically persuasive it might be.

This is the core reason why relevancy and admissibility cannot be treated as synonymous: relevancy is the necessary condition; admissibility is the further legal permission required before the evidence can be received by the Court.

The Proposition in Practice: Relevant but Not Admissible

The most important and practically significant aspect of this distinction is the class of facts which are relevant but inadmissible. The law recognises that certain highly relevant facts must be excluded from proof for reasons of public policy, privilege, or procedural protection. These exclusionary rules are found both within Chapter II of the IEA and in other chapters.

Confessions under Sections 24, 25, and 26 of the IEA (mirrored in Sections 22, 23, and 24 of the BSA) present the clearest illustration. A confession by an accused is, without doubt, the most directly relevant piece of evidence imaginable — it is, as the learned author Dr. V. Nageswara Rao observes, the best piece of evidence. Yet it becomes inadmissible if made under inducement, threat or promise (section 24), or if made to a police officer (section 25), or while in police custody without a Magistrate's presence (section 26). Notably, the Act uses the word "irrelevant" in section 24, when in truth the confession remains highly relevant — it is merely rendered inadmissible. The Supreme Court in Dagdu v. State of Maharashtra (AIR 1977 SC 1579) reaffirmed that relevancy and admissibility must be determined strictly in accordance with the provisions of the Evidence Act.

Section 27 of the IEA (Section 25 of the BSA) offers a partial lifting of the bar: so much of the information received from a person accused of an offence in police custody as relates distinctly to the fact thereby discovered may be proved. This is the celebrated "discovery provision," which illustrates that even an otherwise inadmissible confession acquires a limited admissibility if it leads to the discovery of a relevant fact.

Privileged Communications under Sections 122 to 131 of the IEA (Sections 120 to 129 of the BSA) constitute another major class of relevant but inadmissible evidence. Communications between husband and wife during marriage (section 122), affairs of state and unpublished official records (section 123), and professional communications between advocate and client (section 126) are all examples where the underlying facts may be directly relevant to the issue before the Court, yet are barred from disclosure on grounds of public policy and the sanctity of confidential relationships. The Bombay High Court had occasion to apply section 126 in B.C. Pandya v. State of Bombay (AIR 1959 SC 356), reinforcing that such communications, however relevant, cannot be used as evidence.

Section 162 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Section 180 of the BNSS, 2023) provides that statements made to a police officer during investigation shall not be used for any purpose at any inquiry or trial. Once again, such statements may be highly relevant — they may even contain an eye-witness account — but they are rendered inadmissible by an external statutory provision, demonstrating that the exclusionary rules can also originate outside the Evidence Act itself.

Bad character evidence under section 54 of the IEA (section 52 of the BSA) is declared "irrelevant" in criminal proceedings unless the accused has first led evidence of good character. As the learned author Nageswara Rao observes with intellectual honesty, it is difficult to understand how the bad character of an accused can be said to be truly irrelevant — it is in fact a matter of direct relevance. What the law intends is that it is inadmissible, kept out not for want of logical connection but because admitting such evidence would unfairly prejudice the accused before guilt has been established.

The Proposition Examined: Admissible Evidence Must Be Relevant

The second limb of the proposition — that all admissible evidence is relevant — follows naturally and admits of no exception in the Indian system. Section 5 of the IEA is categorical: evidence may be given of no facts other than facts in issue and facts declared relevant. The Court cannot receive or act upon evidence of a fact that has no relevance. Section 165 of the IEA (Section 158 of the BSA) reinforces this by providing that the judgment of the Court must be based upon facts declared by this Act to be relevant and duly proved. It follows, logically and legally, that nothing can be admitted that is not first relevant.

There exists, however, a nuanced category that requires attention. Sections 156 and 157 of the IEA deal with questions asked to corroborate a witness, and former statements used for corroboration. V.P. Sarathi, after a careful analysis, concludes that some facts admissible under these sections to test the credibility of witnesses — such as facts let in under sections 146 and 155 — may be "admissible" in the broader sense without being "relevant" under sections 6 to 55. These are admitted not for their probative value in establishing the facts in issue, but purely to test the credit of a witness. The Supreme Court in Ramratan v. State of Rajasthan (AIR 1962 SC 424) recognised this distinction between relevancy for substantive purposes and admissibility for the limited purpose of corroboration or impeachment. This is a fine but important exception to the general statement that all admissible evidence must be relevant.

Section 136 and the Three Stages of Inquiry

The pivotal provision that operationalises the relevancy-admissibility distinction is Section 136 of the IEA (Section 134 of the BSA). It lays down a three-stage process. First, the party proposing to give evidence of a fact must be asked by the judge in what manner the alleged fact would be relevant. Second, the judge shall admit the evidence only if satisfied that the fact, if proved, would be relevant. Third, if admissibility depends on the prior proof of another fact, that other fact must be proved first — unless the party undertakes to prove it later and the Court accepts such undertaking.

A picturesque way of understanding section 136 — offered by Nageswara Rao — is to imagine a courtroom with fifty doors, each door representing sections 6 to 55. A fact is brought to the courtroom door and may be permitted entry if it qualifies under one of those fifty doors. However, across that open door there may still be a bar — an exclusionary provision like sections 24, 25, or 26. The fact must then show, additionally, that the bar has been lifted by an exception — as section 27 lifts the bar of section 25 when the confession has led to the discovery of a relevant fact.

The Vital Distinction: Admissibility of Evidence vs. Mode of Proof

A further, often overlooked, dimension of this discussion is the distinction drawn by Sir James Stephen himself — and later elaborated by the Supreme Court in RVE Venkatachala Gounder v. Arulmigu Visweswaraswami (2003) 8 SCC 752 — between the admissibility of evidence and the admissibility of the mode of proof. A fact may be relevant and admissible in principle, but the particular mode in which it is sought to be proved may be irregular or insufficient. An objection to the admissibility of a document as inherently inadmissible can be raised even at the appellate stage. But an objection merely to the mode of proof — for instance, that secondary evidence was produced instead of primary evidence under section 64 — must be raised promptly at the trial stage; failure to do so amounts to waiver. This was subsequently applied to electronic records in Sonu Amar v. State of Haryana (Criminal Appeal No. 1418 of 2013), where the Supreme Court held that failure to object to the mode of proof of CDRs under section 65B amounts to waiver.

The Reliability Dimension

It is equally important to note that even after a fact is found to be relevant and admissible, the Court's inquiry does not end. The question of reliability — the weight to be attached to the evidence — remains entirely within the domain of judicial wisdom. As the Supreme Court observed in Anvar P.V. v. P.K. Basheer (2014) 10 SCC 437, genuineness, veracity, and reliability of evidence are assessed only after the questions of relevancy and admissibility have been resolved. In R v. Madhub Chunder (1874) 21 WR Cr 13, Birch J. encapsulated this with admirable clarity: "For weighing evidence and drawing inferences from it, there can be no canon. Each case presents its own peculiarities and in each, common sense and shrewdness must be brought to bear upon the facts elicited."

Relevancy is therefore the domain of legislative function; reliability and proof are within the domain of judicial function.

Summary of the Legal Position

The legal position under the IEA, now substantially retained under the BSA, may be stated thus:

• A fact is legally relevant only if it is declared to be relevant under one of sections 6 to 55. Logical relevancy, by itself, is not enough in India.

• A legally relevant fact is also admissible, unless it is barred by an exclusionary provision — whether found within Chapter II (sections 24–26), in other chapters of the Act (sections 122–131), or in external statutes (section 162 CrPC, now section 180 BNSS).

• All admissible evidence must, as a rule, be relevant — but certain evidence admitted for the limited purpose of impeaching or corroborating a witness may lie at the margins of this principle.

• An objection to admissibility — going to the root of the evidence — may be raised at any stage. An objection to mode of proof must be raised promptly or it is waived.

• After relevancy and admissibility are established, the Court evaluates reliability — a separate inquiry governed entirely by judicial assessment.

The two terms, relevancy and admissibility, are therefore related concepts that operate in sequence, not in substitution for one another. To conflate them is to misunderstand the entire architecture of the Evidence Act — an architecture built by Sir James Stephen with the twin objectives of ensuring that only probative evidence is placed before the Court, while protecting certain relationships and interests that the law deems too important to sacrifice at the altar of evidentiary convenience.