Secondary evidence includes—
evidence
“evidence” includes— (a) all statements which the court permits or requires to be made before it by witnesses in relation to matters of fact under inquiry: such statements are called oral evidence; (b) all documents produced for the inspection of the court: such documents are called documentary evidence;
certified copies given under the provisions hereinafter contained;
copies made from the original by mechanical processes, which in themselves ensure the accuracy of the copy, and copies compared with such copies;
copies made from or compared with the original;
counterparts of documents as against the parties who did not execute them;
oral accounts of the contents of a document given by some person who has himself seen or heard it or perceived it by whatever means.
document
“document” means any matter expressed, described, or howsoever represented, upon any substance, material, thing or article, including any matter embodied in a disc, tape, film, sound-track or other device whatsoever, by means of— (a) letters, figures, marks, symbols, signals, signs, or other forms of expression, description, or representation whatsoever; (b) any visual recording (whether of still or moving images); (c) any sound recording, or any electronic, magnetic, mechanical or other recording whatsoever and howsoever made, or any sounds, electronic impulses, or other data whatsoever; (d) a recording, or transmission, over a distance of any matter by any, or any combination, of the means mentioned in paragraph (a), (b) or (c), or by more than one of the means mentioned in paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (d), intended to be used or which may be used for the purpose of expressing, describing, or howsoever representing, that matter; A writing is a document. Words printed, lithographed or photographed are documents. A map, plan, graph or sketch is a document. Evidence 15 An inscription on wood, metal, stone or any other substance, material or thing is a document. A drawing, painting, picture or caricature is a document. A photograph or a negative is a document. A tape recording of a telephonic communication, including a recording of such communication transmitted over distance, is a document. A photographic or other visual recording, including a recording of a photographic or other visual transmission over a distance, is a document. A matter recorded, stored, processed, retrieved or produced by a computer is a document;
A photograph of an original is secondary evidence of its contents, though the two have not been compared, if it is proved that the thing photographed was the original.
A copy compared with a copy of a letter made by a copying machine is secondary evidence of the contents of the letter if it is shown that the copy made by the copying machine was made from the original.
A copy transcribed from a copy but afterwards compared with the original is secondary evidence, but the copy not so compared is not secondary evidence of the original, although the copy from which it was transcribed was compared with the original.
Neither an oral account of a copy compared with the original nor an oral account of a photograph or machine copy of the original is secondary evidence of the original.
Evidence 53