Abstract

In both civil and criminal proceedings, expert witness plays a vital role to establish the fact and claims. Generally, experts are being called to give evidence as a witness in civil case or criminal case. Expert witnesses are those who are skilled on a specific field and when the court need opinion on that particular field to clear the doubts, they are being called to give testimony before the court. Expert witnesses are being called on the basis of the discretion of the court. The expert's opinion must be corroborated by the relevant case's facts and circumstances. The Evidence Act, 1872 does not specify a minimum level of education, training, or experience required to be referred to as an expert. Experts may be called witnesses, but they may not draw conclusions because it is the role of the judge. The main objective of this research is to understand how important the opinions of the expert witness in judicial decision making. After completing this research, the author finds that, the definition of expert witness is very much narrow which need to be broader. And lastly, there should be a mandatory obligation on the calling of expert.

Keywords