A witness, who never saw the original document, gives an oral account of a photograph of it. Is this…

Section 58(v) admits as secondary evidence oral accounts of a document's contents given by a person who has himself seen it. Illustration (d) to section 58 says neither an oral account of a compared copy nor an oral account of a photograph or machine copy is secondary evidence of the original, so the answer is "No, it is not secondary evidence of the original". The witness must have seen the original itself; loss of the photograph does not change this.