A person summoned to produce a documents does not become a witness in the case unless he is called witness.
There are various types of witnesses:
- Interested witnesses
- Dumb witnesses
- Lunatic witnesses
- Rustic witnesses
- Eye witnesses
- Child witnesses
- Injured witnesses
- Chance witnesses etc.
Interested witnesses – A witnesses to be interested must have some direct interest in having the accused somehow convicted for some extraneous reason and a near relative of the victim is not necessarily an interested witnesses…..Amit v. State of Uttar Pradesh, 2012 (4) SCC 107
A witnesses may be called ‘interested’ only when he or she derives some benefit from the result of litigation; in the decree in a civil case, or in seeing an accused person punished…….Ganapthi v. State of Tamil Nadu, 2018 (5) SCC 549.
Dumb witnesses – A witnesses who is not able to speak may give his/her evidence in any manner in which he/she can make it intelligible, as by writing or by signs; but such writing must be written and the signs should be in open Court. Evidence so given shall be deemed to be oral evidence.
Lunatic witnesses – A lunatic will not declare to be incompetent unless his/her lunacy will prevent him/her from answering or understanding questions which will put to them.
Rustic witnesses – Rustic witnesses is a person who is not educated and belongs from poor strata of society. The evidence of these witnesses should be appreciated as a whole. The rustic witnesses as compared to educated witnesses are not expected to remember every small detail of the incident and the manner in which the incident had happened especially when the evidence is recorded after lapse of time.
Eye witnesses – Eye witnesses is best witness unless there are reasons to doubt it and if it is corroborated by the other evidences then there is no reason to doubt it. If there is discrepancy between ocular and medical evidence then ocular evidence shall prevail over medical evidence because medical evidence is in the nature of expert’s opinion.
Child witnesses – Children are admissible as witnesses as soon as they have a competent share of understanding, and know and feel the nature of an oath, and of the obligation to speak the truth. There can, therefore, scarcely be assigned any precise age for the admission of them as witnesses.
Injured witnesses – The testimony of the injured witnesses is of great importance because it confirms the presence of injured person at the place of incident.
Chance witnesses – As regards evidence of chance witness, merely because there was no compelling reason for a person to be present at the time of occurrence, that by itself need not necessarily mean that his evidence has to be rejected…….Kuzhiyaramadiyil Madhavan v.State, 1994 Cri LJ 450 (Ker).