Q. What is the difference between legal or logical relevancy?
Ans. There are two cardinal principles of the law of evidence. What is relevant may be proved; but everything that is relevant may not be admissible as evidence. This admissibility of evidence is tested on the basis of the ‘truth value’ of the relevant facts. For example, certain facts though relevant, are excluded under the Evidence Act, viz. –
1. Similarly, hearsay evidence, that is, the assertion regarding the existence of any fact by any person who is not called as a witness, is generally excluded.
2. Evidence regarding the opinion of others regarding the existence or non-existence of a fact is generally excluded, though in some exceptional cases, it may be admitted.
3. The fact that any person’s character is such as to render certain conduct imputed to him probable or improbable is also excluded. Thus, it should be noted that the law does not admit every fact which is logically relevant.
‘LOGICAL RELEVANCY’ AND ‘LEGAL RELEVANCY’ – A fact which is logically relevant may not be legally relevant under the provisions of the Evidence Act, and so would be inadmissible in evidence. All admissible evidence is relevant, but all relevant evidence is not necessarily admissible. All facts which are allowed by the provisions of the Evidence Act to be proved are relevant; but, however, relevant a fact may be, unless it is allowed to be proved by the provisions of the Evidence Act, it is not admissible.
One fact is said to be legally relevant to another, only when the one is connected with the other in any of the ways referred to in Sections 5 to 55 of the Evidence Act. Logical relevancy is wider than legal relevancy; every fact which is legally relevant is logically relevant, but every fact which is logically relevant, is not necessarily legally relevant. Thus, a confession made to a police officer may appear to be logically relevant, but such a confession is not legally relevant, for Section 25 of the Act declares that it cannot be used as evidence against the person making it.
Relevancy is the genus of which admissibility is a species.