The Indian Evidence Act, 1872 · Ch. X — OF THE EXAMINATION OF WITNESSES

Section 164 — Using, as evidence, of document production of which was refused on notice

When a party refuses to produce a document which he has had notice to produce, he cannot afterwards use the document as evidence without the consent of the other party or the order of the Court. Illustration 1. As to the application of s. 161 to police diaries, see the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Act 2 of 1974), s. 172. A sues B on an agreement and gives B notice to produce it. At the trial A calls for the document and B refuses to produce it. A gives secondary evidence of its contents. B seeks to produce the document itself to contradict the secondary evidence given by A, or in order to show that the agreement is not stamped. He cannot do so.

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

Renumberedold law ⇄ new law

Old lawIEA Section 164Using, as evidence, of document production of which was refused on notice New lawBSA Section 167Using, as evidence, of document production of which was refused on notice

IEA Section 164 → BSA Section 167 per the official NCRB Sankalan table.

BSA Section 167 — Using, as evidence, of document production of which was refused on notice· the later provision, in full

This is the text of BSA Section 167, not of the section above. Read both before relying on either.

When a party refuses to produce a document which he has had notice to produce, he cannot afterwards use the document as evidence without the consent of the other party or the order of the Court.

Illustration. A sues B on an agreement and gives B notice to produce it. At the trial, A calls for the document and B refuses to produce it. A gives secondary evidence of its contents. B seeks to produce the document itself to contradict the secondary evidence given by A, or in order to show that the agreement is not stamped. He cannot do so.

Open BSA Section 167 on its own page →

Share:WhatsApp Telegram

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.

How we verify this text →

Spotted a mistake in this text or its mapping? Report an issue with IEA Section 164

Was this page useful for your prep?