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Indian Evidence Act, 1872 · Chapter V: Of Documentary Evidence · Presumptions as to documents

Section 81: Presumption as to Gazettes, newspapers, private Acts of Parliament and other documents

The Indian Evidence Act, 1872 was repealed and replaced by the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 from 1 July 2024. It still applies to matters and proceedings from before that date, as the repealing law provides.

In plain words

The court must presume the genuineness of documents purporting to be the London Gazette, any Official Gazette, a newspaper or journal, a printed private Act of the United Kingdom Parliament, or a document the law requires to be kept, if substantially in the required form and produced from proper custody.

A simplified explanation, prepared with AI assistance from the official text below and checked automatically against it for numbers and cross-references. The official text is the law and prevails over this summary. Not legal advice.

Official text

The Court shall presume the genuineness of every document purporting to be the London Gazette or [any Official Gazette, or the Government Gazette] of any colony, dependency or possession of the British Crown, or to be a newspaper or journal, or to be a copy of a private Act of Parliament [of the United Kingdom] printed by the Queen’s Printer, and of every document purporting to be a document directed by any law to be kept by any person, if such document is kept substantially in the form required by law and is produced from proper custody.

Source: India Code (Legislative Department), the text of the Act as it stood before its repeal. Words in square brackets [ ] were inserted or substituted by later amending Acts, and *** marks words omitted by an amendment. The amendment footnotes are not reproduced here.

Supreme Court judgments citing the section 81