Section 128 of the Evidence Act 2011 – What it Says and All You Need to Know.
Table of Contents
Section 128 of the Evidence Act 2011 Provides as Follows:
(1) When a judgment of a court or any other judicial or official proceeding, contract or any grant or other disposition or property has been reduced to the form of a document or series or documents, no evidence may be given of such judgment or proceeding or of the terms of such contract, grant or disposition of property except the document itself, or secondary evidence of its contents in cases in which secondary evidence is admissible under this Act; nor may the contents of any such document be contradicted, altered, added to or varied by oral evidence:
Provided that any of the following matters may be proved-
(a) fraud, intimidation, illegality; want of due execution, the fact that it is wrongly dated, existence or want or failure, of consideration, mistake in fact or law; want of capacity in any contracting party, or the capacity in which a contracting party acted when it is not inconsistent with the terms of the contract, or any other matter which, if proved, would produce any effect upon the validity of any document, or of any part of it, or which would entitle any person to any judgment, decree, or order relating to it;
(b) the existence of any separate oral agreement as to any matter on which a document is silent, and which is not inconsistent with its terms, if from the circumstances of the case the court infers that the parties did not intend the document to be a complete and final statement or the whole of the transaction between them;
(c) the existence of any separate oral agreement, constituting a condition precedent to the attaching of any obligation under any such contract, grant or disposition of property;
(d) the existence of any distinct subsequent oral agreement to rescind or modify any such contract, grant or disposition of property; and
(e) any usage or custom by which incidents not expressly mentioned in any contract are annexed to contracts of that description; unless the annexing of such incident to such contract would be repugnant to or inconsistent with the express terms of the contract.
(2) Oral evidence of a transaction is not excluded by the fact that a documentary memorandum of it was made, if such memorandum was not intended to have legal effect as a contract, grant or disposition of property.
(3) Oral evidence of the existence of a legal relationship is not excluded by the fact that it has been created by a document when the fact to be proved is the existence of the relationship itself, and not the terms on which it was established or is carried on.
Other Relevant Sections:
- Section 129 of the Evidence Act 2011
- Section 130 of the Evidence Act 2011
- Section 131 of the Evidence Act 2011