Two maps of the same disputed strip of land arrive in a courtroom: one a decades-old survey sheet from the State's own land records department, the other freshly drawn by a surveyor one of the parties hired specifically for this litigation. Do both maps get the same benefit of the doubt? The Bombay High Court answered that question directly in Dnyaneshwar Balu Patole v. State of Maharashtra, 2011 ALL MR (Cri) 1889, holding that only the first kind carries any presumption of accuracy at all. Section 82 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (BSA) is the provision that draws exactly that line, in a single sentence with a proviso built directly into it.
82. Presumption as to maps or plans made by authority of Government.
The Court shall presume that maps or plans purporting to be made by the authority of the Central Government or any State Government were so made, and are accurate; but maps or plans made for the purposes of any cause must be proved to be accurate.
Section 82 corresponds word-for-word to Section 83 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (itself the product of a series of pre-Independence amendments — the Adaptation of Orders in 1937, 1948, and 1950, and Act 40 of 1949 — that progressively replaced the original "Government" with "the Central Government or any State Government"). The BSA text is confirmed identical, verified against two independent sources, latestlaws.com and lawglobalhub.com, and cross-checked against the BSA-to-IEA correspondence table.
One Sentence, Two Opposite Rules
Section 82 is unusual among this chapter's presumption provisions in that it does not merely grant a presumption — it grants one and expressly withholds it in the very same breath. The main clause presumes both that a government-authorised map was actually made by that authority and that it is accurate. The proviso immediately reverses course for a specific category: a map or plan made for the purposes of any cause — meaning one prepared specifically for use in litigation — gets no such presumption and must instead be proved accurate through ordinary evidence.
| Type of Map or Plan | Presumption of Accuracy |
|---|---|
| Government survey map prepared for general public or administrative record | Presumed accurate, without separate proof |
| Map or plan specifically prepared for the purposes of a particular cause (i.e. litigation) | No presumption — accuracy must be independently proved |
| Map prepared by a private surveyor with no government authority behind it, for any purpose | Outside this section entirely — falls back on ordinary rules of proof |
Why Dnyaneshwar Balu Patole Reads the Distinction as Purpose-Driven, Not Source-Driven
The Bombay High Court's reasoning in Dnyaneshwar Balu Patole is worth reading closely because it resolves a subtlety the bare text alone does not spell out: the disqualifying factor is not who drew the map, but why it was drawn. A government department's own survey map, prepared and maintained as part of its ordinary official record-keeping — for a town, a forest boundary, a river course, or a road — retains Section 82's presumption even though it may later be produced in litigation, because it was not made for that litigation's purposes. A map commissioned by a government authority specifically at a litigant's request, timed to and shaped by a pending or anticipated dispute, loses that presumption even though it still bears official backing, because its purpose — not its source — brings it within the proviso.
Applying the Test in Practice
A Practical Illustration
A land dispute turns on whether a disputed plot falls inside or outside a village's revenue boundary. One party produces a decades-old cadastral survey map maintained in the State's land records office, created long before this dispute arose, as part of routine revenue administration. Section 82 lets the court presume that map both genuinely government-made and accurate, without a separate proving exercise. The opposing party then produces a fresh boundary sketch prepared by a surveyor they engaged after the dispute began, specifically to support their claim at trial — even if that surveyor happens to hold a government licence, the sketch falls squarely within the proviso and must be independently proved accurate, exactly as the Bombay High Court's reasoning in Dnyaneshwar Balu Patole would require.
Key Takeaways
- Section 82 BSA carries forward Section 83 IEA verbatim, confirmed against two independent sources with no substantive change.
- The section grants a mandatory presumption of both authenticity and accuracy for government-authorised maps and plans, and simultaneously withholds it for any map made for the purposes of a cause.
- Dnyaneshwar Balu Patole v. State of Maharashtra, 2011 ALL MR (Cri) 1889, establishes that the disqualifying factor is the map's purpose at creation, not the identity or authority of who made it.
- A government map made as part of ordinary administrative record-keeping retains the presumption even when later used in litigation, provided litigation was not its purpose at creation.
- A map specifically commissioned for a pending or anticipated dispute must be proved accurate through ordinary evidence, however official its source.
Conclusion
Section 82 protects the reliability the law expects from a government's own ordinary record-keeping while refusing to extend that same trust to anything created with a specific case's outcome in mind — a distinction courts have applied by looking past a map's letterhead to its actual purpose. This presumption cluster continues into the digital counterpart of Section 80's Gazette provision — Section 81, covered next.