Improper Admission and Rejection of Evidence

                   The Indian Evidence Act 1872, Chapter XI , Section 167 deals with the improper admission or rejection of evidence. It says, "No new trial for improper admission or rejection of evidence .
              
No new trial for improper admission or rejection of evidence Section167 : 

                   "The improper admission or rejection of evidence shall not be ground of itself for a new trail or reversal of any decision in any case, if it shall appear to the Court before which such objection is raised that, independently of the evidence objected to and admitted, there was sufficient evidence to justify the decision, or that, if the rejected evidence had been received, it ought not to have varied the decision."

     Sometimes improper evidence may happen to be admitted. It means that evidence of irrelevant facts has been admitted . It can also happen that evidence, which is relevant and should have been admitted, may be rejected. Section 167 of the Indian Evidence Act says that an improper admission or rejection of evidence by itself is not a ground for a new trial reversal of the decision. Reversal or new trial can be ordered only if it appears that the improperly admitted evidence had been rejected or the improperly rejected evidence had been admitted, the decision would have been different.

    When therefore, an appeal is grounded on the improper exclusion or admission of evidence, the appellant must be prepared to show, not only that there has been an improper admission or exclusion but that a mockery of justice has been thereby caused 

 According to Section 167, an improper admission or rejection of evidence can be ground for new trial only following cases

a) In case of improper admission, if it appears to the court hearing the objection that the decision could not be justified independently of the evidence objected as improperly admitted. 

b) In case of improper rejection if the court is of view that admission of the rejected evidence. 

 
Scope : This Section applies to civil and criminal cases.

Effect of improper Admission or rejection in civil cases :

                     The improper admission or rejection of evidence is not ipso facto ground for new trial, where there is ample evidence to justify decision irrespective of the admission or the rejection of evidence.

But it should be borne in mind that the reception of inadmissible Evidence is less injurious then the rejection of admissible evidence because in the former case in arriving at a decision the evidence wrongly admitted can well be excluded from consideration whereas a latter case the evidence wrongly rejeted can only be brought on record by having recourse to further proceeding.

In criminal cases : 

 This section applies to criminal cases also. It is only when the high court feels doubt that if  one fact were not there whether the opinion or decision of a certain authority would have been the same, that the High Court interferes but where it is Patently clear that there would have been no other decision, in that event the extraneous circumstances above would not vitiate the order.