An appellant files a company appeal with what they believe is a "certified copy" of the tribunal's order — a free copy the registry handed over as a courtesy. The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal rejects it. In Munagala Roja Harsha Vardhini v. Vardhansmart Private Ltd. (NCLAT, 2024), the Tribunal held that a free copy simply is not a certified copy for the purpose of computing limitation — a certified copy requires a demand, payment of the prescribed fee, and the officer's own certificate of authenticity, exactly as Section 75 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (BSA) describes. The ruling is a sharp reminder that "certified copy" is not a loose figure of speech; it is a defined legal procedure with real consequences if skipped.
75. Certified copies of public documents. Every public officer having the custody of a public document, which any person has a right to inspect, shall give that person on demand a copy of it on payment of the legal fees therefor, together with a certificate written at the foot of such copy that it is a true copy of such document or part thereof, as the case may be, and such certificate shall be dated and subscribed by such officer with his name and his official title, and shall be sealed, whenever such officer is authorised by law to make use of a seal; and such copies so certified shall be called certified copies. Explanation.—Any officer who, by the ordinary course of official duty, is authorised to deliver such copies, shall be deemed to have the custody of such documents within the meaning of this section.
Section 75 carries forward Section 76 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 without any change in wording — one more provision in this chapter the BSA leaves untouched. Read carefully, the section actually sets out a checklist of four separate requirements that must all be satisfied before a copy earns the label "certified copy" and the evidentiary privileges that come with it:
- A right to inspect must exist. The officer's duty only arises for documents a person is legally entitled to inspect in the first place — Section 75 does not create a general right of access to every government file.
- Demand and payment of the legal fee. The copy must actually be requested, and the prescribed fee paid; a copy volunteered without demand, or issued free of charge, falls outside the section.
- A dated, subscribed certificate. The officer must write a certificate at the foot of the copy stating it is a true copy, dated and signed with the officer's name and official title.
- Sealing, where applicable. If the officer is legally authorised to use a seal, the certificate must be sealed as well.
The Explanation attached to the section deserves separate attention, because it quietly broadens who counts as the "custodian" for this purpose. It is not only the officer formally designated as record-keeper who owes the Section 75 duty — any officer who, in the ordinary course of official duty, is authorised to deliver such copies is deemed to have custody of the document, whether or not that officer is its original keeper. This prevents a government department from evading its Section 75 obligations by routing copy requests through a junior official who technically lacks formal custodial designation but is, in practice, the person who actually issues the copies.
The "right to inspect" gate at the start of the section is worth dwelling on, because it is easy to assume every document held by a public authority is automatically inspectable and copyable on demand. It is not. Whether a particular person has a right to inspect a particular public document depends on the specific statute or rule governing that document — land revenue rules for a mutation register, court rules for a case file, company law rules for a tribunal order. Section 75 does not itself decide who may inspect what; it only tells the custodian what to do once that separate right has been established, whether under those specific rules or, increasingly, under the Right to Information Act, 2005.
Section 74, immediately preceding this one, defines what counts as a public document at all. Section 75 assumes that classification is settled and moves to the mechanics of actually obtaining a certified copy of one. Section 76, immediately following, then tells the court what that certified copy is good for once obtained — proof of the underlying document's contents. Together, the three sections form a clean sequence: classify the document, obtain the copy, use the copy as proof.
Key Takeaways
- Unchanged text: Section 75 is a verbatim carry-over of Section 76 IEA — no drafting changes at all.
- Four-part checklist: a right to inspect, demand plus fee payment, a dated and subscribed certificate, and sealing where the officer is authorised to seal.
- Free copies are not certified copies: per Munagala Roja Harsha Vardhini v. Vardhansmart Pvt. Ltd. (NCLAT, 2024), a copy issued without demand and fee payment does not satisfy Section 75, with real consequences for limitation and admissibility.
- Custody is functional, not just formal: the Explanation deems any officer who ordinarily issues such copies to have "custody," even without a formal custodial title.
- Not a standalone right of access: Section 75 governs the mechanics of certification once a right to inspect already exists under some other law or rule.
Section 75 is one of those provisions litigants rarely think about until a deadline or an admissibility fight turns on exactly how a document was obtained. Getting the mechanics right at the outset — demanding the copy properly, paying the fee, insisting on the dated and signed certificate — costs little. Discovering after the fact that a free or informal copy will not do the job Section 75 requires can cost a case entirely.