A map published by the Survey of India, a nautical chart of India's coastline, a village-boundary plan approved by a State Government — these are documents most litigants take for granted, until a case turns on what one of them shows. Section 30 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (BSA) settles the evidentiary question these documents pose: statements of fact contained in officially published or government-authorised maps, charts and plans, on the matters usually represented in them, are themselves relevant facts.
30. Relevancy of statements in maps, charts and plans. Statements of facts in issue or relevant facts, made in published maps or charts generally offered for public sale, or in maps or plans made under the authority of the Central Government or any State Government, as to matters usually represented or stated in such maps, charts or plans, are themselves relevant facts.
Section 30 reproduces Section 36 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (IEA) without any change in wording. The BPRD BSA-to-IEA correspondence table records "No change." Its role in Chapter II is to open the documentary-relevancy trio that runs from Sections 30 to 32 — this section covers maps and plans, Section 31 covers Central/State Acts and official Gazette notifications on public-nature facts, and Section 32 covers foreign statutes and law reports.
Two independent classes of qualifying documents
The two classes are alternatives, not cumulative. A document need not be both government-authorised and publicly sold; it must satisfy either limb. That distinction matters because many long-established commercial cartographic works — nautical charts, published atlases — carry authority in their subject areas even where no direct government authorisation is stamped on them, and Section 30 admits them on that basis.
The "matters usually represented" condition
Section 30 is not a licence to admit every statement in a qualifying document. The admissibility is confined to "matters usually represented or stated in such maps, charts or plans." A topographical sheet is admissible on features it typically shows — rivers, roads, elevation, forest boundaries; a hydrographic chart is admissible on depths, currents, and coastal features; a village revenue map is admissible on survey numbers, plot boundaries, and land classifications. Extraneous annotations that would not usually appear in that class of document do not gain admissibility merely by being written on it.
Why the section exists
Left to the general rules of proof, cartographic content would present real difficulty. A map's author is typically a surveyor or a government office rather than a witness who can be brought into court to testify to every measurement it records. Without a special rule, a litigant relying on a map would face a hearsay-like objection to every statement it contained. Section 30 dispenses with that difficulty for the two classes it identifies: published-for-sale maps carrying commercial authority, and government-authorised maps carrying institutional authority. It presumes the reliability inherent in those two categories of production and lets their statements enter the record directly.
Placement in Chapter II's documentary trio
| Section | Documentary source | Kind of statement admitted |
|---|---|---|
| 30 | Published maps/charts or government-authorised maps/plans | Statements of facts on matters usually represented |
| 31 | Central/State Acts and their Official Gazette notifications (printed or electronic) | Statements as to facts of a public nature |
| 32 | Books of foreign law and reports of foreign court rulings (printed or electronic/digital) | Statements as to foreign law and court rulings |
How courts use Section 30 in practice
The section is regularly invoked in land, boundary, water-rights, and public-way litigation. In a boundary dispute between two revenue villages, the village revenue maps prepared under State authority are directly admissible under limb (2). In a dispute over an alleged public right of way, an old Survey of India topographical sheet showing a track running through the disputed land can be admissible under limb (1). In an admiralty or maritime claim turning on the depth of an approach channel, a published nautical chart of the port is admissible under limb (1). In each, the section removes the need to call the surveyor or the publisher, and admits the map itself as an item of evidence.
The section also plays a role in cases involving town planning, forest boundaries, and infrastructure alignment. Officially notified town-planning schemes and their accompanying plans, forest-department maps of reserved and protected forests, and government-issued maps annexed to notifications all fall within limb (2) and can be tendered in litigation touching those subject matters.
Two limits worth noting
The first limit is temporal. A map admitted under Section 30 speaks to the state of affairs at the time it was prepared, not necessarily to the state of affairs today. A Survey of India sheet published decades ago will typically reflect features that existed at that time; the party relying on it must be prepared to explain, through supplementary evidence, how far those features have or have not changed. This is why counsel often tender maps of different vintages side by side, allowing the court to trace continuity or change in the disputed feature over time.
The second limit concerns authenticity. A tendered document must be shown, on its face or through accompanying material, to be a published map genuinely offered for public sale, or a map or plan actually made under Central or State Government authority. Section 30 admits the class; it does not admit imitations or unattributed reproductions. Where authenticity is contested, the party tendering the document may need to supplement Section 30 with a certified copy or with a witness who can speak to the document's provenance.
Key Takeaways
- Two classes admitted: published maps/charts generally offered for public sale, and maps/plans made under Central or State Government authority.
- Matters-usually-represented condition: only statements on subjects the document typically covers are admitted through this section.
- Relevant, not conclusive: the section makes the statement relevant; the accuracy of the statement remains open to challenge.
- Unchanged from Section 36 IEA: the recodification preserved the provision verbatim.
- Opens the documentary-relevancy trio: works with Sections 31 (public-nature statements in Acts/notifications) and 32 (foreign law books).
Conclusion
Section 30 gives Indian evidence law a workable and long-established route for the reception of cartographic evidence. It recognises two independent bases on which a map or plan carries enough inherent authority to be admitted — commercial publication for public use, and government authorship — while confining admissibility to the subjects the document type properly covers. Reproduced verbatim from Section 36 of the 1872 Act, it continues to open Chapter II's cluster of documentary-relevancy provisions and to spare litigants the cost of calling every surveyor in every land, boundary, or maritime dispute.