A woman prosecutes a man for picking her pocket, can this question that she had given birth to an illegitimate child ten year before be asked? Answer with reasons.

Question: A woman prosecutes a man for picking her pocket, can this question that she had given birth to an illegitimate child ten year before be asked? Answer with reasons.

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Answer

In the scenario described, the question about whether the woman had given birth to an illegitimate child ten years before is likely to be considered improper and disallowed by the court, based on the considerations outlined in Section 148 of the Indian Evidence Act, as well as the principles of relevance and fairness. Here are the reasons for this:

Relevance: The Primary principle of evidence law is that questions and evidence must be relevant to the matter in issue. In this case, the woman is prosecuting the man for picking her pocket. The fact that she may have given birth to an illegitimate child ten years before is entirely unrelated to the alleged pickpocketing incident. It does not bear any relevance to whether the man committed the crime or not.

Remoteness in Time: As per Section 148, questions are considered improper if they relate to matters that are so remote in time that the truth of the imputation would not affect or would affect in a slight degree the opinion of the court as to the credibility of the witness on the matter to which she testifies. In this case, the birth of an illegitimate child ten years prior is remote in time from the incident in question and is unlikely to have any bearing on the woman's credibility regarding the pickpocketing incident.

Disproportionate Imputation: Section 148 also considers questions improper if there is a great disproportion between the importance of the imputation made against the witness's character and the importance of their evidence. In this case, the question about the woman's past childbirth would be disproportionate to the matter in issue, which is the alleged pickpocketing. The fact of having given birth to an illegitimate child in the past is not relevant to the credibility of her testimony regarding the pickpocketing incident.

Therefore, based on the principles outlined in Section 148 of the Indian Evidence Act and the specific circumstances described, the court is likely to disallow the question about the woman's past childbirth, as it is improper, irrelevant, remote in time, and disproportionate to the matter in issue. The court's primary focus should be on the evidence and questions directly related to the alleged pickpocketing incident.

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