Every land record, every police-station diary entry, every registrar's certificate, every entry in a hospital admission register is, in principle, someone's recorded statement about a fact. Would the law insist that the public servant who made the entry be called to testify each time such a record is used in court? Section 29 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (BSA) says no: an entry in a public or official book, register, or record — including an electronic record — made by a public servant in the discharge of official duty, is itself a relevant fact.
29. Relevancy of entry in public record or an electronic record made in performance of duty. An entry in any public or other official book, register or record or an electronic record, stating a fact in issue or relevant fact, and made by a public servant in the discharge of his official duty, or by any other person in performance of a duty specially enjoined by the law of the country in which such book, register or record or an electronic record, is kept, is itself a relevant fact.
Section 29 reproduces Section 35 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (IEA) without any change in wording. The BPRD BSA-to-IEA correspondence table records "No change." The provision covers electronic records because the IEA's Section 35 was amended by the Information Technology Act, 2000 to include them, and that inclusion has been carried across unchanged.
Three cumulative conditions
All three conditions must be satisfied. An unofficial note in the margin of an official register, an entry made by a person who had no duty to record it, or an entry on a subject the register was not designed to cover falls outside Section 29.
Why the section works the way it does
The justification is one of institutional reliability. A public servant recording a fact in the ordinary course of duty has no personal stake in the matter, is subject to service discipline for accuracy, and is doing so at or about the time of the event — all features that make such records more reliable than a witness's memory of the same fact recalled years later. Section 29 recognises that reliability by admitting the entry directly, without requiring the maker to be produced.
Public servants and "other persons under duty"
The section covers two classes of maker. The first is a public servant acting in official duty — a police officer entering an FIR in the station register, a sub-registrar entering a document in the register of deeds, a revenue officer entering a mutation in the record of rights, a court clerk entering a filing in the case register. The second, and less-remarked, is "any other person in performance of a duty specially enjoined by the law of the country in which such book, register or record or an electronic record, is kept." This limb picks up entries made by persons who are not public servants but who nevertheless have a statutory duty to keep the record — for example, certain persons required to maintain registers under commercial or professional-regulation statutes.
The reference to "the law of the country in which such book, register or record… is kept" also allows entries in foreign public records to fall within the section, where a foreign law imposes the duty on the maker to keep such a record. That extension is useful in modern litigation with a cross-border dimension.
Electronic public records in current practice
The reference to "electronic record" in Section 29 is unchanged from the post-2000 form of Section 35 IEA, but its practical weight has grown dramatically. Land-record digitisation programmes have shifted revenue records into electronic databases in most States; police stations maintain electronic FIR and station-diary systems under the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS); registrar's offices maintain electronic registers of documents; hospitals and public health establishments maintain electronic health records. All of these fall within Section 29's reach, provided the three cumulative conditions are met.
Interaction with the surrounding relevancy provisions
| Section | Focus |
|---|---|
| 28 | Entries in books of account (private commercial records) regularly kept in the course of business |
| 29 | Entries in public or official books, registers, records, or electronic records made in the discharge of duty |
| 30 | Statements in published maps or charts, and in government-authorised maps or plans |
| 31 | Recitals in Central/State Acts and Central/State Government notifications |
Sections 28 to 31 form a small architectural set of documentary-relevancy rules: private-commercial-record entries under Section 28, public-record entries under Section 29, published cartographic material under Section 30, and legislative and Gazette recitals under Section 31. Each covers a discrete class of documentary evidence with its own indicia of reliability.
Key Takeaways
- Public-record entries are relevant: an entry in a public or official book, register, record, or electronic record made by a public servant in official duty is itself a relevant fact.
- Three cumulative conditions: the entry is in a qualifying record; it states a fact in issue or relevant fact; and it is made by a public servant in duty or by another person under a specially-enjoined legal duty.
- Electronic records included: the coverage extends to electronic official records — land records, CCTNS, electronic health records, digitised registers.
- Relevant, not conclusive: the section admits the entry; a party may still lead contrary evidence.
- Unchanged from Section 35 IEA: the recodification preserved the provision verbatim.
Conclusion
Section 29 lets Indian courts do without the impractical formality of calling every public servant behind every official entry that comes into evidence. By recognising the reliability inherent in duty-recorded entries — and by including electronic official records within its reach — the section keeps the trial focused on the record itself, leaving room for challenge where accuracy is genuinely disputed. Reproduced verbatim from Section 35 of the 1872 Act, it remains one of the most heavily used relevance provisions in day-to-day civil, criminal, and revenue litigation.