Literal Meaning
The right of offering proof is not to be narrowed.
Explanation & Origin
Origin- Facultas prohationum non est angustanda is a latin term which means the right of offering proof is not to be narrowed down or the right of making proof is not to be curtailed.
Explanation- This Latin term means, when a proof is shown before the court it can’t be narrowed down. But has to be used as it is.
Illustration
The proof in a robbery case is facultas probationum non est angustanda.
Case Reference
In the case of J.K. (Bombay) (P) Ltd vs New Kaiser-I-Hind Spg. & Wvg. Co.[1] The figures were, however, misleading because Rs. 17.12 lacs were the gross receipts and not net profit. Before arriving at net profits, cost of raw materials, labour, depreciation etc. had to be worked out and then only a true picture of the working of the unit would emerge. Besides, the, figure of Rs. 17 lacs does not take into account the cost of processing the company’s goods and whether that had resulted in profit. This is important when it is remembered that the company paid Rs. 21 lacs in 1966- 67 for processing its goods though Jhunjhunwalas were to charge only cost price for processing the company’s goods. It was, therefore, unsafe from a few figures to jump to the conclusion that had the unit not been parted with the mills would have made profit. It was said that the Jalans should have produced the company’s accounts if they wanted to show that the terms on which they had parted with the said ,unit were profitable to the company. The Jalans gave several reasons why the account could not be produced. Whether they were true or not, even if the accounts had been produced they could not have thrown any light as no separate accounts were kept of the income and expenditure of the unit in 1964-65. But then if the unit was the most profit-yielding unit and had made large profit in 1964-65 one wonders why Singhanla should have applied for permission to sell or lease it. It is also difficult to believe that the Jalians would let out the unit at a nominal consideration only a month after they had restarted the mills as in the beginning at any rate they were genuinely interested in working the mills and implementing the scheme unless of course the allegation that Jhunjhunwalas were their nominees was true. But, as the Appeal Court has rightly said, no proof was offered in support of that allegation.
In the case of Madhusudan Das vs Smt. Narayanibai (Deceased) [2] Apparently, for this reason the parties concentrated in the main before the High Court on the limited controversy whether in fact the ceremony of giving and taking had been performed. Although neither written acknowledgements, nor the performance of any religious ceremonial, are essential to the validity of adoptions, such acknowledgements are usually given, and such ceremonies observed, and notices given of the times when adoptions are to take place, in all families of distinction, as those of ‘Zamindars’ or opulent Brahmins, that wherever these have been omitted, it behoves this Court to regard with extreme suspicion the proof offered in support of an adoption. I would say, that in no case should the rights of wives and daughters be transferred to strangers, or more remote relatives, unless the proof of adoption, by which the transfer is effected, be proved by evidence free from all suspicion of fraud, and so consistent and probable as to give no occasion for doubt of its truth.
In the case of Diwakar vs Chandanlal [3] Although neither written acknowledgments, nor the performance of any religious ceremonial, are essential to the validity of adoptions, such acknowledgments are usually given, and such ceremonies observed, and notices given of the times when adoptions are to take place, in all families of distinction, as those of Zamindars or opulent Brahmins, that wherever these have been omitted, it behoves this Court to regard with extreme suspicion the proof offered in support of an adoption. I would say, that in no case should the rights of wives and daughters be transferred to strangers, or more remote relatives, unless the proof of adoption, by which that transfer is effected, be proved by evidence free from all suspicion of fraud, and so consistent and probable as to give no occasion, for doubt of its truth.
Edited by Vigneshwar Ramasubramania
Approved & Published – Sakshi Raje
[1] 1970 AIR 1041
[2] AIR 1983 SC 114,
[3] (1916) 18 BOMLR 992
