Non-administer of an oath to an adult goes only to credibility of witness and not its competency.
It is the settled view that non-administer of an oath to an adult goes only to the credibility of the witness and not its competency. The Oaths Act does not deal with the competency of an witness and under Section 13 of the Act, omission to take oath does not effect admissibility of the evidence. In AIR 1952 SC 54 : (1952 Cri LJ 547) (Rameshwar v. The State of Rajasthan), the view of the Apex Court is that --
"An omission to administer an oath, even to an adult, goes only to the credibility of the witness and not his competency. The question of competency is dealt with in Section 118, Evidence Act. The Oaths Act does not deal with competency and under Section 13 of that Act omission to take oath does not affect the admissibility of the evidence. It therefore follows that the irregularity in question cannot affect the admissibility of the evidence of the girl.
It is, however, desirable that Judges and Magistrates should always record their opinion that the child understands the duty of speaking the truth and state why they think that, otherwise the credibility of the witness may be seriously affected, so much so, that in some cases it may be necessary to reject the evidence altogether."
Gauhati High Court
Babrubahan Jal vs State Of Assam on 19 June, 1990
Equivalent citations: 1991 CriLJ 278
Bench: R Manisana, M Sharma
https://www.lawweb.in/2013/06/non-administer-of-oath-to-adult-goes.html
