634 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
I. C OMPETENCY FROM THE STANDPOINT OF
INTELLECTUAL CAPACITY .
Section 118 deals with the question of competency from the standpoint of intellectual capacity.
The rule enacted in Section 118 is a rule which recognises the power of understanding as the only test of competency.
As every normal person has the intellectual capacity to understand things and to grasp their importance, Section
118 declares that all persons are competent to testify unless they suffer from want of understanding.
The law of competency is therefore practically the law of incompetency. A person is a competent witness who is not incompetent.
Incompetency therefore means want of understanding. This want of understanding may arise from
(i) Tender years.
(ii) Extreme old age.
(iii) Disease whether of body or mind.
(iv) Any other cause of the same kind.
- Comment.
(i) Tender year or (ii) Extreme old age — is not defined.
A boy of 7 may not be incompetent but 12 may be, if the former has an understanding which the latter has not. A man of 60 may be incompetent and a man of 80 may not be.
The test is not the age. The test is the Existence or nonExistence of understanding.
(iii) Disease of the body
A witness may be in such extreme pain as to be unable to understand or if able to understand to answer questions. He may be unconscious, as if in a fainting fit, catalepsy or the like. Here again it is a question of fact whether in any particular case the disease of the body is such as to deprive a person of his power of understanding.