VIGILANCE MANUAL VOLUME III - AP Online

DECISION - 324
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obtaining the requisite ticket in lieu thereof. The statement of the
Inspectors, it was argued, was thus hearsay and inadmissible in
evidence. The collection of fare by the Conductor from 13 passengers
had not taken place in the presence of the checking staff and
therefore, the testimony of the two Inspectors was solely based on
the ipsi dixit of those 13 passengers who have remained unnamed
and unidentified till today. The plaintiff contended that there was
therefore no legal evidence on which the Inquiry Officer based his
report.
The High Court referred to State of Haryana vs. Shri Ram
Chander, 1976(2) SLR 690, where a Full Bench held that there is no
bar against the reception of hearsay evidence by domestic tribunals
and that the extent to which such evidence may be received and
used must depend on the facts and circumstances of each case and
the principles of natural justice. O. Chinnappa Reddy, Acting Chief
Justice (as his Lordship then was), speaking for the Bench referred
to Phipson in his “Law of Evidence” in which the author had observed
that nine-tenth of the world’s business is conducted on the basis of
hearsay. It was also pointed out that considerable inroad had been
made by statute recently in England and first-hand hearsay was now
admissible in evidence in Courts of law. Exception to the rule of
hearsay already existed under the Evidence Act, in that dying
declaration and retracted confession were admissible. What is more,
the domestic tribunals were masters of their own procedure as long
as they observed rules of natural justice. Apart from the rules of
natural justice the other safeguard in connection with the reception
of hearsay evidence is that it should be “logically probative”. In this
connection, the Bench took two hypothetical examples to bring out
the real legal position and stated: “If half a dozen persons go to the
office of the Haryana Roadways and complain that the conductor of
a certain bus collected fare from them but did not issue tickets to
them and if later on the passengers are not examined as witnesses,
a finding of guilt based solely upon the complaint given by the