Events do not happen in isolation. They arise out of specific occasions, are caused by identifiable events, produce effects that ripple outward, and take place under a particular state of things. Section 5 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (BSA) admits all of that surrounding causal architecture as relevant — facts which are the occasion, cause, or effect of relevant facts or facts in issue, and facts constituting the state of things under which they happened or the opportunity for their occurrence.
5. Facts which are occasion, cause or effect of facts in issue or relevant facts. Facts which are the occasion, cause or effect, immediate or otherwise, of relevant facts, or facts in issue, or which constitute the state of things under which they happened, or which afforded an opportunity for their occurrence or transaction, are relevant.
Illustrations.
(a) The question is, whether A robbed B. The facts that, shortly before the robbery, B went to a fair with money in his possession, and that he showed it, or mentioned the fact that he had it, to third persons, are relevant.
(b) The question is, whether A murdered B. Marks on the ground, produced by a struggle at or near the place where the murder was committed, are relevant facts.
(c) The question is, whether A poisoned B. The state of B's health before the symptoms ascribed to poison, and habits of B, known to A, which afforded an opportunity for the administration of poison, are relevant facts.
The BSA's edit: heading updated to reflect the section's full reach
Section 5 corresponds to Section 7 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (IEA). The BPRD BSA-to-IEA correspondence table records that the words "or relevant facts" have been added to the heading. Where the IEA heading spoke only of "facts in issue", the BSA heading now names both "facts in issue" and "relevant facts" — accurately reflecting the section's operative text, which has always covered both.
| Feature | Section 7, IEA | Section 5, BSA |
|---|---|---|
| Heading | "Facts which are the occasion, cause or effect of facts in issue" | "Facts which are occasion, cause or effect of facts in issue or relevant facts" |
| Operative rule | Occasion, cause, effect; state of things; opportunity | Identical |
Five distinct kinds of relevant fact
The "immediate or otherwise" qualification
The section's phrase "immediate or otherwise" is doing important work. Both cause and effect need not be immediate. A cause that operated through a chain of intervening events, or an effect that manifested only after some delay, can still qualify. This lets the section capture the full causal picture without artificial time-based cutoffs. The rain the day before the accident, that caused the road to become slippery, that caused the accident, is a cause "otherwise" — one step removed but still relevant on the accident's occurrence.
Reading the three illustrations
Illustration (a) — occasion for a robbery. The question is whether A robbed B. That B went to a fair with money, and told others about the money, are facts constituting the occasion for the robbery — they provide the specific circumstances that made the robbery a possibility.
Illustration (b) — effect of a murder. The question is whether A murdered B. Marks on the ground produced by a struggle at or near the place are physical effects of the murder — evidence of what happened, admissible through the "effect" limb.
Illustration (c) — state of things and opportunity. The question is whether A poisoned B. The state of B's health, and B's habits known to A which afforded an opportunity to administer poison, are two facts falling under different limbs — the state-of-things (B's health) and opportunity (B's known habits) limbs, both working together to support the poisoning inference.
Placement in the general relevance framework
| Section | Function |
|---|---|
| 3 | Facts in issue and relevant facts may be given in evidence |
| 4 (same transaction) | Facts forming part of the same transaction as a fact in issue or relevant fact |
| 5 | Facts which are the occasion, cause, effect, state of things, or opportunity |
| 6 | Motive, preparation, and previous or subsequent conduct |
| 7 | Facts necessary to explain or introduce fact in issue or relevant facts |
Modern applications
Section 5 remains one of the most frequently invoked relevance provisions in daily practice. In criminal cases, the section admits crime-scene evidence (marks, weapon location, positioning of the body — all "effects"), evidence of victim's movements before the crime ("occasion"), and evidence about the accused's opportunity (proximity, access, timing). In civil cases, the section admits evidence of the state of an object before an accident ("state of things"), the accident itself as effect, and facts explaining opportunities for the alleged breach. Every commercial dispute about causation of loss draws on Section 5's cause-and-effect limbs.
The distinction from Section 4 (same transaction)
Section 5 is often paired with Section 4 in argument, but the two admit different kinds of fact. Section 4 admits facts that are part of the same transaction as a fact in issue — they belong to the very sequence of events that constitutes the transaction. Section 5 admits facts that are external to the transaction but bear on it causally — the occasion that framed it, the cause that produced it, the effect that flowed from it, the state of things it happened under, or the opportunity that enabled it. In practice, some facts will qualify under both provisions; where the fact clearly belongs to the transactional sequence, Section 4 is the natural home, and where it is a surrounding causal fact, Section 5. Counsel commonly cite both together in argument, letting the court choose whichever ground it prefers.
Key Takeaways
- Five kinds of relevant fact: occasion, cause, effect, state of things, and opportunity.
- Immediate or otherwise: both cause and effect need not be immediate; remote or chain-of-events causation qualifies.
- Heading updated: BSA heading now says "facts in issue or relevant facts", matching the operative text.
- Three illustrations: the fair-and-money occasion, the struggle-marks effect, the health-and-habits state-of-things/opportunity.
- Substantive rule unchanged from Section 7 IEA.
Conclusion
Section 5 captures the surrounding causal architecture that gives the primary facts their meaning. Its five limbs — occasion, cause, effect, state of things, and opportunity — cover almost every kind of context evidence a court is likely to receive. The BSA's only edit is a heading correction that finally names both "facts in issue" and "relevant facts", matching what the operative text has always covered. The section continues, in its BSA form, to be one of the most-invoked general relevance provisions in Chapter II.