Evidence is information that tends to prove or disprove a fact in question. Evidence may consist of documents, public records, aff‌idavits or the testimony of witnesses. It also may be an object, such as a murder weapon, whose existence or appearance provides information about the fact in question. Each party to a legal dispute presents evidence to the court. The court considers the evidence and decides the disputed facts.

The law of evidence is the lex fori (law of the place where an action is instituted) which governs the Courts. Whether a witness is competent or not: whether a certain matter requires to be proved by writing or not: whether a certain evidence proves a certain fact or not; that is to be determined by the law of the country where the question arises, where the remedy is sought to be enforced, and where the Court sits to enforce it. The law of evidence is a part of the law of procedure. The Indian Evidence Act applies to all judicial proceedings before any court or court martial. It does not apply to aff‌idavits, and proceedings before arbitrator‘s.

There are two general kinds of evidence, direct evidence and circumstantial evidence. Direct evidence tends to prove a fact without the help of other evidence. For example, an eyewitness to a murder gives direct evidence by testifying that he or she saw the accused kill the victim. Circumstantial evidence tends to prove facts that support the main fact in question, but it does not tend directly to prove the main fact itself. Here, the witnesses give circumstantial evidence by testifying that they saw the accused leave the murder scene. This evidence indicates that the defendant could have killed the victim, but by itself it does not tend directly to prove it.

If evidence about a fact is lacking, a rule of law may state that the fact is proved by other facts. Such a statement is called a presumption. For example, proof that someone has been missing for at least seven years may result in the presumption that he or she is dead. Whenever a court presumes a fact, it may either regard such fact as proved, unless and until it is disproved, may call for proof of it.