Introduction to Res Gestae:

Res Gestae is a Latin word which means “things done.” This is the rule of law of evidence
and is an exception to hearsay rule of evidence that hearsay evidence is not admissible. It is a
spontaneous declaration made by a person immediately after an event within the same
transaction of the event.

It represents an exception to the hearsay rule. Res gestae is a concept which as a matter of
principle is employed in the English system of administration of criminal justice under the
name of "res gestae". In our system of administration of justice, Article 19 of Qanun-e-
Shahadat, 1984 corresponding to section 6 of the Evidence Act of 1872, is an enacted
provision of law under which statement made immediately after the occurrence under the
influence of occurrence in order to characterize it and connecting therewith would be
admissible under this article as "res gestae" evidence.1 According to Wigmore, a frequent
application of the phrase has been to the Hearsay Exception for spontaneous exclamations,
i.e. statements made during or after an affray, a collision, or the like, used to prove the facts
asserted in the statement.2

Relevancy of fact forming part of same transaction.

Fact 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 principle is based on the experience that, under certain external circumstances of
physical shock, a stress of nervous excitement may be produced which stills the reflective
faculties and removes their control, so that the utterance which then occurs is a spontaneous
and sincere response to the actual sensations and perceptions already produced by the
external shock. Since this utterance is made under the immediate and uncontrolled
domination of the sensed, and during the brief period when considerations of self-interest
could not have been brought fully to bear by reasoned reflection, the utterance may be taken
as particularly trustworthy (or, at least, as lacking the usual grounds of untrustworthiness),

1
SAMEEULLAH KHAN versus THE STATE and another (2000 P Cr. L J 769 Peshawar)
2
Wigmore J. H. (1940), WIGMORE ON EVIDENCE, Vol.VI, 3rd Edn. LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY,
pp1764-1768.
and thus as expressing the real tenor of the speaker‟s belief as to the facts just observed by
him; and may therefore be received as testimony to those facts.3

In Babulal vs W.I.T Ltd. 5 it was observed that the statement of law in section 6 of the
Evidence Act is usually known as Res Gestae. The literal meaning of the word “res” is
“everything that may form an object of rights and includes an object, subject matter or
status.”4

In Prem Chand Versus State (NCT of Delhi), it was held that the principle of law embodied
in this section enunciates the rule that declarations which are contemporaneous or almost
contemporaneous with the transaction in issue i.e. the interval between two being so short and
there being no opportunity for fabrication, such a declaration would be admissible as res
gestae.5

In understanding the nature of the res gestae exception to hearsay and the manner in which it
must be construed in individual cases by the Judiciary, it is important to rely repeatedly on
the underlying consideration that is often overlooked – the reliability of the statement.6

The res gestae embraces not only the actual facts of the transaction and the circumstances
surrounding it, but the matters immediately antecedent to and having a direct causal
connection with it, as well as acts immediately following it and so closely connected with it
as to form in reality a part of the occurrence.” J. McKnight, State v. Fouquette, 221 P.2d 404,
416-417 (Nev. 1950)7

The rationale in making certain statement on fact admissible under Section 6 of the Evidence
Act is on account of the spontaneity and immediacy of such statement or fact in relation to
the fact in issue. But, it is necessary that such fact or statement must be part of the same
transaction. In other words, such statement must have been made contemporaneous with the
acts which constitute the offence or atleast immediately thereafter. But, if there was an

3
Wigmore J. H. (1940), WIGMORE ON EVIDENCE, Vol.VI, 3rd Edn. LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY,
p.1747. see also Accord: 1916, Perry v. Haritos, 100 Conn. 476, 124 Atl. 44 (Wheeler, C.J., quote the above text
with approval)
4
Escorts Farms Ltd vs Commisioner Kumaon Division 2004 INDLAW SC 1157
5
2014(5) AD(Delhi) 352
6
http://www.lawteacher.net/common-law/essays/the-doctrine-of-res-gestae-law-essays.php.
7
http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/quotation/%5Bfield_short_title-raw%5D_229.
interval, however slight it may be, which was sufficient enough for fabrication then the
statement is not part of res gestae.8

Contemporaneous utterances have been described in Gurdev Singh, Balwinder Kumar,

Angrej Singh, Bachittar Singh Versus UOI & Ors. 2014(2) SLR 675, that Statements made
by a person to a third person soon after an incident, but with no gap of time are akin to
contemporaneous utterances and are admissible as res gestae evidence through the deposition
of the one who heard the utterance. Statements made after some gap which cease to be res
gestae are hearsay evidence and thus inadmissible as per the law of evidence. In Chhotka v.
State, AIR 1958 Calcutta 48215 it was held that the requirement of Section 6 is that the
statement must have been made contemporaneously with the act or immediately after it and
not at such an interval of time as to make it a narrative of past events or to allow time for
fabrication.

One of the leading decisions in relation to the res gestae exception is that of the Privy Council
in Ratten v. The Queen, which dealt with the admissibility of the statement of a telephone
operator who received a call from the deceased minutes before she was allegedly murdered
by her husband. The Council characterised the statement as original evidence of „verbal
facts‟, as opposed to hearsay evidence, as the object of admitting the statement was not to
establish the truth of the statement made, but merely to establish the fact that it was made.
The following observation was made: “Words spoken are facts just as much as any other
action by a human being. If the speaking of the words is a relevant fact, a witness may give
evidence that they were spoken. A question of hearsay only arises when the words spoken are
relied on "testimonially," i.e., as establishing some fact narrated by the words.”9

Following the decision of the Privy Council in Ratten‟s Case, the law on this point was
consolidated decisively in the celebrated case of R v. Andrews. Lord Ackner of the House of
Lords exhaustively dealt with this exception, moving away from the simple question of
whether the statement was a fact to be admitted as original evidence, to the more complex
one of whether the truth of the statement relayed could be admissible as an exception to the
hearsay rule, and by what justification. This issue was of considerable significance as the
statement of the victim was one which, if admitted, would disclose the identities of his
assailants. The House of Lords found itself compelled to effectively demarcate the

8
Sarkar S.C., (2014) S.6, SARKAR LAW OF EVIDENCE, vol.I, 18th Edn., LexisNexis, p.286
9
http://www.lawteacher.net/common-law/essays/the-doctrine-of-res-gestae-law-essays.php
boundaries of the exception in response to the question posed by the Defence: “If such
hearsay is so admissible, how wide can the material events go before becoming
inadmissible?”10

Evidence in criminal cases is still required to comply with Common Law standards that have
been incorporated into statutory provisions operating today. Although it was impossible to
envisage any settled, universally acceptable test to adjudge whether hearsay be admissible on
the basis of the principle of res gestae, the Courts in England have made a laudable attempt to
identify the nature of this exception.

The test for applying the rule of res gestae is that the statement should be spontaneous and
should form part of the same transaction ruling out any possibility of concoction.11

The declarations are admitted when they appear to have been made under the immediate
influence of some principal transaction, relevant to the issue, and are so connected with it as
to characterize or explain it. It should appear that they were made without premeditation or
artifice, and without a view to the consequences; that they are the spontaneous utterances,
natural result of the act they characterize or elucidate.12

The declaration must be calculated to unfold the nature and quality of the facts which they are
intended to explain; they must so harmonise with those facts as to form one transaction.
There must be a transaction of which they are considered a part; they must be concomitant
with the principal act, and so connected with it as to be regarded as the result and
consequence of co-existing motives.13

Declarations that do not satisfy this test are rejected as hearsay. Res gestae is an ambiguous
and elastic expression and as Phipson says “led to confusion and gave rise to at least four
conflicting conceptions, e.g. (i) one which applies the term res gestae to the main fact in
relation to its constitutent details; (ii) one which applies it to the details of such fact merely;
(iii) one which applies it to the „surrounding circumstances‟ of some central fact, called, in
contradistinction, the principal fact; and (iv) one which applies it to the total whole composed
of both principal fact and surrounding circumstances.14

10
http://www.lawteacher.net/common-law/essays/the-doctrine-of-res-gestae-law-essays.php
11
Javed Alam v. Sate of Chhattisgarh, (2009) 6 SCC 450(455).
12
Jones Ev Civil, s.344: see Noor Md v Imtiaz, A 1940 O 130.
13
Jones, s.348 citing People v. Vernon, 35 Cal 49 and other American cases
14
Sarkar S.C., (2014) S.6, SARKAR LAW OF EVIDENCE, vol.I, 18th Edn., LexisNexis, p.287
In Kailash Chandrakar and another Versus State of Madhya Pradesh (Now Chhattisgarh), 15it
was held that to form a particular statement as a part of the same transaction or of the same
incident or just contemporary to the incident so as to make it reasonably certain that the
speaker is still under stress of excitement in respect of the transaction are facts to be
considered. The principle is that it should be so intimately connected with the fact in issue as
to be a spontaneous utterance inspired by the excitement of the occasion or a spontaneous
reaction thereof and there being no opportunity for deliberately fabricating the statement. In
other words, the statement which is a part of res gestae does not narrate a past event, but it is
the event itself speaking through a person thus excluding the possibility of any design behind
it.

Despite its intuitive appeal, Wigmore‟s notion that a person would not have time to think up
a lie before making an excited utterance in response to a startling event is not borne out by
psychological research. The time required to craft a lie is slight--sometimes only a matter of
seconds.16 It was asserted that the difference in reaction time between deceptive and sincere
responses is negligible. The excited utterance exception, which tolerates more than a thirty-
minute gap between the event and the utterance, allows more than sufficient time for
planning a false report. Psychological studies support this observation and indicate that the
difference between the time of cognition and the time when the declarant may begin to
fabricate is so small that it is often impossible to measure without instruments.17

The testimony of children is often the subject of excited utterance debate.18 Usually whenever
there is a time gap, the transaction is said to end and any statement which do not form part of
the transaction is inadmissible. However in cases of children this rule is relaxed. The
rationale for expanding the exception for children emphasizes how children cope with stress

15
2014(135) AIC 553, CHHATTISGARH HIGH COURT
16
See Robert M. Hutchins & Donald Slesinger, Some Observations on the Law of Evidence, 28 Column. L.
Rev. 432, 437 (1928)
17
See Robert M. Hutchins & Donald Slesinger, Some Observations on the Law of Evidence, 28 Column. L.
Rev. 437 (1928)
18
See generally Lucy S. McGough, Child Witnesses: Fragile Voices in the American Legal System 126-88
(1994) (discussing the relationship between hearsay and child witnesses in both civil and criminal contexts);
Nancy Walker Perry & Lawrence S. Wrightsman, The Child Witness: Legal Issues and Dilemmas 169-73
(1991) (discussing the challenges courts face with respect to hearsay rulings when dealing with child witnesses).
because their statements are often made well after events occur at the first safe opportunity to
speak.19

In Uttam Singh vs State of Madhya Pradesh20the child witness was sleeping with the
deceased father at the relevant time of incident and was awakened by the sound of the fatal
blow of the axe on the neck of the deceased. Seeing it, the child shouted to his mother for
help by naming the accused as assailant. On hearing the sounds the mother and sisters of the
child and other witnesses gathered at the spot. This evidence washeld to be admissible as a
part of the same transaction as such shout was the natural and probable as per the facts of the
case. In this case if child witness failed to reacton the spot but spoke later, it could still be
admissible under sec. 6. The res gestae doctrine has often been criticised. According to
PROFESSOR STONE, “no evidential problem is so shrouded in doubt and confusion.”21

Conclusion:

To conclude, we can say that some of the cases bearing upon this topic exhibit diversity of
the opinion, but the following points appear to have been fairly settled:-

1) The declarations (oral or written) must relate to the act which is in issue or relevant
thereto; they are not admissible merely because they accompany an act. Moreover the
declarations must relate to and explain the fact they accompany, and not independent facts
previous or subsequent thereto [Agassiz v. London Tramways Co.] unless such facts are part
of a transaction which is continuous.

2) The declarations must be substantially contemporaneous with the fact and not merely the
narrative of a past. [Thompson v. Trevanion; R v. Christie; Teper v. R, 1952, 2 All ER 447].

3) The declaration and the act may be by the same person, or they may be by different
persons, e.g, the declarations of the victim, assailant and by-standers22

19
See Commonwealth vs Di Monte, 692 N.E.2d 45, 50 (Mass. 1998) (“Our affirmance of a judge’s admission
of a statement to a physician from a child some five hours after she had been scalded is an outer limit in our
cases thus far.”); see also Commonwealth vs Hardy, 716 N.E.2d 109, 114 n.7 (Mass. App. Ct. 1999) (noting
children’s statements are given “special consideration” for excited utterances).
20
2002 INDLAW MP 79
21
Dr. AVTAR SINGH, (2009), Chap. 2, RELEVANCY OF FACTS, PRINCIPLES OF THE LAW OF
EVIDENCE, 9TH Edn. CENTERAL LAW PUBLICATOINS, Fane Road, Lahore, pp.47-48
22
Sarkar S.C., (2014) S.6, SARKAR LAW OF EVIDENCE, vol.I, 18th Edn., LexisNexis, pp.293-294