Short answer. It raises a presumption, not a conviction. Rule 131, Section 3 presumes That a person found in possession of a thing taken in the doing of a recent wrongful act is the taker and the doer of the whole act. Being disputable, it can be overcome by a credible explanation supported by evidence.
What the law says
That a person found in possession of a thing taken in the doing of a recent wrongful act is the taker and the doer of the whole act
Rule 131, Section 3 — Disputable presumptions. Read the full provision →
What the law says
The following presumptions are satisfactory if uncontradicted, but may be contradicted and overcome by other evidence
Rule 131, Section 3 — Disputable presumptions. Read the full provision →
What the presumption says, precisely
Three elements have to line up before it applies. There must be a wrongful act in which something was taken; the taking must be recent; and the person must be found in possession of that thing. Where all three hold, the law treats the possessor as the taker and as the doer of the whole act — not merely as someone who ended up with the item. That last phrase is the sting: the inference runs to the entire wrongful act, not just to the possession.
Recency is doing most of the work
The inference is only sensible while the trail is short. Something found in a person's hands hours after it was taken is hard to explain innocently; the same object surfacing years later has passed through too many possible hands for the inference to hold. The rule builds that logic in with the word recent, and the longer the interval between the taking and the finding, the weaker the presumption becomes. There is no fixed period in the text, and none should be invented — it is judged on the circumstances.
How it is answered
Section 3 presumptions are satisfactory if uncontradicted, but may be contradicted and overcome by other evidence. The answer to this one is an account of how the item came into your hands that the evidence supports: a purchase with a receipt and an identifiable seller, delivery in the ordinary course of a business that handles second-hand goods, or possession for someone else who can confirm it. Silence is the worst response, because an uncontradicted presumption is described by the rule itself as satisfactory.
A presumption is not proof beyond reasonable doubt
This is a rule of evidence about how an inference may be drawn; it does not lower the standard of proof in a criminal case, and it does not convert possession into an automatic finding of guilt. It also does not decide which offence is involved — separate laws deal specifically with dealing in items obtained through another's wrongful act. What the clause does is place on the possessor the practical need to explain, and explanations are far more convincing when the supporting documents still exist.