State Of Haryana v. Raju Alias Rajkumar
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14.
Now the question that arises for consideration is as to whether the aforesaid entry can be considered for the purpose of arriving at a conclusion as to the age of the victim? In the context, it may be stated that the well settled position of law is that the entries made in the school register/school leaving register are required to be proved in accordance with law and the standard of proof required in such cases remains the same as in any other civil case. 1 ! ) % $ B ()$.) .. '/ ' % ( %0
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PW-8, who issued certificate Ex. PI, was obviously not the person/official, who had made entries in the Admission & Withdrawal Register regarding date of birth of the victim. The mother of the victim had not been examined, though her father had been examined as PW-3 but he did not utter even a single word to the effect that the entry in the school record of the victim with regard to her age was got recorded by him. The entry in the Admission & Withdrawal Register of the school of the victim might have been made by some official in performance of his/her official duties but the question is with regard to probative value of this entry. It is also well settled proposition of law that entries made in the official record by an official authorized for performance of duties might be admissible under Section 35 of the Evidence Act but the Court has a right to examine their probative value. Reference in this regard can be made to the observations made by a Division Bench of this Court in 2 3! '(' . (
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16.
PW-8 did not say that the entry made in the school record was based on some date of birth certificate of the victim received from Registrar, Births and Deaths or from the Chowkidar of the village or the same was recorded by either of the parents of the victim. As such, in the considered opinion of this Court, the age of the victim could not have been determined on the basis of the Ex. PI and this document cannot be stated to be reliable enough to vouch the correctness of the date of birth of the victim. Though, with regard to ossification report Ex.
DA also, no definite conclusion can be drawn as to the age of the victim because this report is also giving the approximate age of the victim to be between 17 to 18 years and this report was simply tendered in evidence by the respondent without examining the doctor(s) who prepared this report and, therefore, the same cannot be even considered to be duly proved in accordance with law. However, in view of the discussion as made above to the effect that the prosecution itself has not succeeded in discharging its duty to prove the probative value of Ex. PI, certificate regarding age of the victim, this Court finds no reason as to why the findings given by the trial Court that the victim was not proved to be below the age of 18 years should not be upheld.
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