Legal Provisions of Section 291 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Cr.P.C.), India.
Deposition of medical witness:
This section provides a special rule of evidence and departs from the ordinary rule that the statement of a person, who is alive and is not called, is not evidence.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The deposition of a medical witness taken and attested by a Magistrate in the presence of the accused can be given in evidence at the trial without calling him as a witness. The provisions of this section are, however, confined to expert evidence given by a medical practitioner as a witness.
A medical professional, while giving evidence, may refresh his memory by referring to a report which he had made of the postmortem examination, but the report itself cannot be treated as evidence and no facts can be admitted there from as a piece of evidence.
However, if the doctor is dead or not available for examination in Court under circumstances stated in Section 32 of the Evidence Act, then in that situation, his postmortem report or injury report may be admissible in evidence.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Sub-section (2) gives discretion to the Court to summon and examine a medical witness, if it deems it necessary but makes it obligatory upon the Court to summon and examine such witness if the prosecution or the accused makes a request for such examination.
It must be stated that the provisions contained in Section 291 are limited to expert evidence, i.e., the medical opinion tendered by a medical professional who appears as a witness. The evidence must be in medical matters only and the section has no application to evidence relating to facts tendered by a witness who incidentally happens to be a doctor or medical practitioner.
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[291-A. Identification report of Magistrate:
(1) Any document purporting to be a report of identification under the hand of an Executive Magistrate in respect of a person or property may be used as evidence in any inquiry, trial or other proceeding under this Code, although such Magistrate is not called as a witness:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Provided that where such report contains a statement of any suspect or witness to which the provisions of Section 21, Section 32, Section 33, Section 155 or Section 157, as the case may be, of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (1 of 1872), apply, such statement shall not be used under this sub-section except in accordance with the provisions of those sections.
(2) The Court may, if it thinks fit, and shall, on the application of the prosecution or of the accused, summon and examine such Magistrate as to the subject matter of the said report.]