News reports are hearsay; cannot be treated as proven fact: Jammu & Kashmir High Court

The Jammu and Kashmir High Court ruled that news reports are hearsay and cannot be treated as proven facts in court. The court emphasized that statements in newspapers require verification from the reporter to be considered reliable evidence. The case involved a dispute over compensation for a woman’s death, where the authorities cited a news report to counter the petitioners’ claims. The court gave more weight to the post-mortem report, which supported the petitioners’ version of events. This ruling underscores the importance of credible evidence in legal proceedings and the limitations of relying on unverified news reports as factual proof.