Statements Made Under Special Circumstances
Section – 34 – [Entries in books of account, including those maintained in an electronic form] when relevant. – [Entries in books of account, including those maintained in an electronic form], regularly kept in the course of business, are relevant whenever they refer to a matter into which the Court has to inquire, but such statement shall not alone be sufficient evidence to charge any person with liability.
Section 34 contains the rider that such statement shall not alone be sufficient evidence to charge any person with liability. In the first place the provision deals only with books of accounts. It primarily pertains to pecuniary transactions. The expression books of accounts means books in which merchants, traders or businessmen generally keep their accounts i.e. statements of debits and credits or receipts and payments. A register kept at the counter of a hotel need not contain any statement of account. So until it is shown that such register also pertained to the pecuniary transactions involving the customers of the hotel the same cannot be treated as a book of accounts. In the second place, even if it is assumed that a register kept in a hotel can be treated as a book of accounts, the entry therein cannot become the sole premise to charge a person with liability….Manish Dixit and Ors. v. State of Rajasthan.