What are public and private documents, How such documents can be prove

In Evidence Act the documents have been divided into two groups : `Private documents' and `Public documents'. Public document has been defined under section 74 and then under section 75 it has been laid down that all documents which are not public documents are private documents.

Section 74. - Public documents. - The following documents are public documents :

(1) documents forming the acts, are records of the act,

(i) of the sovereign authority,

(ii) of official bodies and tribunals, and

(iii) of public officers, legislative, judicial and executive, of any part of India or of the Commonwealth, or of a foreign country;
(2) public records kept in any State of private documents.

According to section 74 a document which is the act or record of the acts of a sovereign authority, official bodies and tribunals, public officer, legislative, judicial and executive is a public document. Public records or private documents are also public documents. A public document is one prepared by a public servant in discharge of his public official duties. It must have been prepared by a public servant in his official duty. The acts mentioned in section 74 are completed acts as distinct from act of a preparatory or tentative character.

Private Documents - Section 75 of Indian Evidence Act says that all documents other than public documents are private documents.

Mode of Proof; Section 77 says that contents of public documents can be proved by filing certified copies of such documents.

Section 78 of Act says that public documents may be proved in following ways :

(1) Acts, orders or notifications of the Central Government in any of its departments, or of the Crown Representatives of any State Government or any department of any State Government, by the records of the departments, certified by the heads of those departments respectively, or by any documents purporting to be printed by order of any such Government or; as the case may be, of the Crown Representative;

(2) The proceedings of the Legislature,by the journals of those bodies respectively, or by published Act or abstracts, or by copies purporting to be printed by order of the Government concerned;

(3) Proclamations, orders or regulations issued by Her Majesty or by Privy Council, or by any department of Her Majesty's Government, by copies or extracts contained in the London Gazette, or purporting to be printed by the Queen's Printer.

(4) The Act of the Executive or the proceedings of the legislature of a foreign country, by journals published by their authority, or commonly received in that country as such, or by a copy certified under the seal of the country or sovereign, or by a recognition thereof in some Central Act;

(5) The proceedings of a Municipal Body in a State; by a copy of such proceedings, certified by the legal keeper thereof, or by a printed book purporting to be published by the authority of such body;

(6) Public documents of any other class in a foreign country, by the original, or by a copy printed by the legal keeper thereof, with a certified under the seal of Notary Public, or of an Indian Council or diplomatic agent, that the copy is duly certified by the officer having the legal custody of original, and upon proof of the character of the document according to the law of the foreign country.