The term 'includes' in Section 63 of the Evidence Act leaves room for cases that do not strictly fall within any of the five categories of secondary evidence enumerated in the section.

( 1 ) IN this Second Appeal by the defendant in a suit for ejectment, only one point has been urged in support of the appeal. The appellant urges that on the evidence on the record, the copy of the notice has not been proved in accordance with S. 63 of the Evidence Act since it is not the compared copy of the original and as such should not have been taken into consideration while decreeing the plaintiffs suit.

( 2 ) THE appellant has admitted that a notice had been sent by the plaintiff and it was duly replied to by her and her original reply is also on the record as also the draft of the notice prepared by the plaintiffs counsel. The learned counsel has submitted that before a document can be tendered as secondary evidence, it must be established that the requirements of one of the five clauses of S. 63 had been complied with. S. 3 of the Evidence Act defines evidence which means oral and documentary evidence. Oral evidence is dealt with in Chapter IV while documentary evidence has been dealt with in Chapter V of the Act and deals primarily with the proof of contents of documents. Documentary evidence itself is divided into two parts - primary and secondary and after defining what is primary evidence and secondary evidence, S. 64 lays down that proof of document must always be by primary evidence except in those cases which are dealt with in subsequent Sections. S. 63 may, therefore, be extracted here to clearly understand the submission made by the counsel: "63. Secondary evidence-Secondary evidence means and includes - (1) certified copies given under the provisions hereinafter contained: (2) Copies made from the original by mechanical processes which in themselves ensure the accuracy of the copy, and copies compared with such copies; (3) copies made from or compared with the original; (4) counterparts of documents as against the parties who did not execute them; (5) oral accounts of the contents of a document given by some person who has himself seen it. " 3-4. The opening words of the section are that secondary evidence means and includes and thereafter five kinds of secondary evidence have been enumerated. According to the counsel sub-cls. (1), (2), (4) and (5) of the section are not attracted in the instant case and the nearest clause is sub-clause (3) thereof according to which the secondary evidence must be a copy made from or compared with the original. What has been stressed is that according to the plaintiffs evidence, there is nothing to indicate that the secondary evidence of the notice i. e. paper No. 54-Ka was a copy made from or compared with the original. It may be stated that according to the plaintiffs, statement, his counsel had drafted the notice paper No. 54-Ka and thereafter it was faired and that faked document was sent to the defendant. It is on this basis that it is urged that Paper No. 54-Ka is only a draft and it was never compared with the original faired copy which was actually dispatched to the defendant. Obviously 54-Ka is not a copy made from the fair notice which was sent to the defendant. 5. The argument of the learned counsel, in my opinion, is based on a very narrow and technical approach to the meaning of this section. The argument also ignores the import of the words means and includes in the beginning of the section. According to the ordinary rules of interpretation of statutes where in the definition of any term, the legislature intends to include certain things within the meaning of the term defined the phrase include is usually employed and from this must be inferred a legislative intent to give an enlarged meaning to that word. The word include therefore, is normally a term for extension of scope of definition and not used in any way to restrict the meaning. In such a case the definition has to be read as enlarging its meaning and when so construed, it should be deemed to be comprehending all that it may signify according to its natural import and would include all