The Indian Evidence Act, 1872 · Ch. I — PRELIMINARY

Section 1 — Short title

This Act may be called the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. Extent. –– It extends to the whole of India [except the State of Jammu and Kashmir] and applies to all judicial proceedings in or before any Court, including Courts-martial, [other than Courts-martial convened under the Army Act (44 & 45 Vict., c. 58)] [the Naval Discipline [29 & 30 Vict., 109] Act or *** the Indian Navy (Discipline) Act, 1934 (34 of 1934),] [or the Air Force Act (7 Geo. 5, c. 51)] but not to affidavits presented to any Court or officer, nor to proceedings before an arbitrator; Commencement of Act.––And it shall come into force on the first day of September, 1872.

How offences under the IEA are classified

Sections of the IEA are not classified one by one by any First Schedule. Part II of the First Schedule to the BNSS classifies offences under every other law by the punishment they carry — and the CRPC’s First Schedule sets out the same three bands.

If punishable with death, imprisonment for life, or imprisonment for more than 7 years.

Arrest: Cognizable
Bail: Non-bailable
Triable by: Court of Session

If punishable with imprisonment for 3 years and upwards but not more than 7 years.

Arrest: Cognizable
Bail: Non-bailable
Triable by: Magistrate of the first class

If punishable with imprisonment for less than 3 years or with fine only.

Arrest: Non-cognizable
Bail: Bailable
Triable by: Any Magistrate

Read it against the punishment in the section above. Vidhara does not place a section in a band for you — that turns on the exact wording of its punishment, which is the section’s to say and not ours.

And a special or local law may provide otherwise: see BNSS section 5, which saves any special jurisdiction, power or procedure another law lays down.

Old law ⇄ new law

Mergedold law ⇄ new law

Old lawIEA Section 1Short title New lawBSA Section 1Short title, application and commencement

IEA Section 1 → BSA Section 1 per the official NCRB Sankalan table. BSA Section 1 consolidates multiple IEA sections.

BSA Section 1 — Short title, application and commencement· the later provision, in full

This is the text of BSA Section 1, not of the section above. Read both before relying on either.

(1) This Act may be called the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023.

(2) It applies to all judicial proceedings in or before any Court, including Courts-martial, but not to affidavits presented to any Court or officer, nor to proceedings before an arbitrator.

(3) It shall come into force on such date as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint.

Open BSA Section 1 on its own page →

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Source & version

Official text: India Code (official) ↗

Official India Code text: The Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (1 of 1872), English PDF (bitstream indian_evidence_act.pdf, 452,020 bytes, sha256 a36ef40d…) fetched from indiacode.gov.in on 2026-08-29 via the DSpace 7 REST API (item handle 123456789/547821, CENTRAL community › Acts collection; the portal migrated from indiacode.nic.in and re-issued every handle). Replaces an Internet Archive Wayback snapshot with a direct fetch from the official portal. Repealed by the BSA 2023 w.e.f. 2024-07-01. Extracted via pdftotext 26.07 -bbox and the @nexlex/ingest inline parser. Automated parse; footnotes/amendment history excluded; spot-verified; full clause-level proofread pending. Amendment footnotes set at body height were removed before parsing (D-085): the parser's body-height floor is now scaled to the document's own modal type size, per page, so a footnote set smaller than the body reaches the footnote latch instead of the statute text.

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