The Indian Evidence Act, 1872 · Ch. V — OF DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE

Section 86 — Presumption as to certified copies of foreign judicial records

The Court may presume that any document purporting to be a certified copy of any judicial record of [ * * * any country not forming part of India or] of Her Majesty’s Dominions is genuine and accurate, if the document purports to be certified in any manner which is certified by any representative of * * * the [Central Government] [in or for] [such country] to be the manner commonly in use in [that country] for the certification of of judicial records. [An officer who, with respect to *** any territory or place not forming part of [India or] Her Majesty’s Dominions, is a Political Agent there for, as defined in section 3, [clause (43)], of the General Clauses Act, 1897 (10 of 1897), shall, for the purposes of this section, be deemed to be a representative of the [Central Government] [in and for the country] comprising that territory or place].

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 86Presumption as to certified copies of foreign judicial records New lawBSA Section 88Presumption as to certified copies of foreign judicial records

IEA Section 86 → BSA Section 88 per the official NCRB Sankalan table.

BSA Section 88 — Presumption as to certified copies of foreign judicial records· the later provision, in full

This is the text of BSA Section 88, not of the section above. Read both before relying on either.

(1) The Court may presume that any document purporting to be a certified copy of any judicial record of any country beyond India is genuine and accurate, if the document purports to be certified in any manner which is certified by any representative of the Central Government in or for such country to be the manner commonly in use in that country for the certification of copies of judicial records.

(2) An officer who, with respect to any territory or place outside India is a Political Agent therefor, as defined in clause (43) of section 3 of the General Clauses Act, 1897, shall, for the purposes of this section, be deemed to be a representative of the Central Government in and for the country comprising that territory or place.

Open BSA Section 88 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.

How we verify this text →

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