Introduction
A cross-examining lawyer puts a question to a witness suggesting they are a criminal, with nothing behind it but a hunch. The witness denies it, the moment passes, and the trial moves on — but does the lawyer simply get away with having asked it?
Not entirely. Section 153 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (BSA), in Chapter X ("Of the Examination of Witnesses"), gives the trial Court a tool that operates outside the trial itself: the power to report an advocate who asks a question without reasonable grounds to the professional body that governs them. This article explains how that reporting mechanism works, why it exists as a check on the reasonable-grounds requirement in the preceding section, and what it means for advocates conducting cross-examination.
153. Procedure of Court in case of question being asked without reasonable grounds.
If the Court is of opinion that any such question was asked without reasonable grounds, it may, if it was asked by any advocate, report the circumstances of the case to the High Court or other authority to which such advocate is subject in the exercise of his profession.
Section 153 Explained: A Consequence Outside the Trial Itself
Section 152, immediately preceding this one, requires that a question conveying an imputation about a witness's character have reasonable grounds behind it before it is asked at all. Section 153 is the enforcement mechanism for that requirement — but a carefully limited one. It does not empower the Court to punish the advocate directly, strike the question with any special sanction beyond ordinary exclusion, or penalise the client. Instead, it creates a reporting channel: the Court may refer the matter to the High Court or the other professional authority governing that advocate's conduct.
This design keeps the trial court's role narrow and procedural. The trial itself continues on its normal track — the reporting power is a separate, parallel consequence, addressed to the advocate's professional standing rather than to the outcome of the case being tried.
How the Mechanism Actually Works
The power is discretionary at every stage — "may report," not "shall report" — and depends entirely on the Court's own assessment that the question genuinely crossed the line Section 152 draws, rather than being a legitimate, if ultimately unsuccessful, line of questioning.
From "Barrister, Pleader, Vakil, or Attorney" to "Advocate"
One small but telling change separates the BSA's version of this provision from its predecessor. The old Indian Evidence Act, 1872 referred to "any barrister, pleader, vakil or attorney" — a list reflecting the fragmented, colonial-era categories of legal practitioners that existed at the time, each historically regulated differently. Section 153 collapses that entire list into a single word: "advocate."
This is not a substantive change so much as a housekeeping one, reflecting a shift that actually happened decades earlier. The Advocates Act, 1961 unified all these historical categories into the single class of "advocate," regulated through the Bar Council system. By the time the BSA was drafted, the old terminology was already an anachronism; Section 153 simply catches the statute's language up to law that had been settled for over sixty years.
Worked Example: A Question That Goes Nowhere
Consider an advocate cross-examining a witness in a civil dispute, who — with no prior instruction, no informant's tip, and no independent basis of any kind — asks the witness point-blank whether they have a criminal record, purely hoping the accusation itself will unsettle the witness or the court's impression of them. The witness denies it, and there is nothing in the case file or the advocate's brief suggesting otherwise.
Note what does not happen in this sequence: the trial itself is not derailed, the witness's denial is handled through the ordinary rules on collateral answers, and no punishment is imposed by the trial court itself. The entire professional consequence, if any, plays out later and elsewhere.
Why This Provision Sits Where It Does
Sections 151 through 153 form a tightly linked sequence: Section 151 lets the Court decide whether a non-relevant, credit-only question must be answered at all; Section 152 requires that such a question have reasonable grounds before it is even asked; and Section 153 gives the Court a way to respond when that requirement is violated. Removing Section 153 would leave Section 152's reasonable-grounds rule as a standard with no real teeth beyond the Court's in-trial disapproval — the reporting mechanism is what gives the requirement genuine, if indirect, force.
| Provision | Role |
|---|---|
| Section 152 | Sets the standard — a credit-impeaching question needs reasonable grounds before it is asked |
| Section 153 | Supplies the consequence — a professional report if that standard is violated |
Section 153 BSA vs. Section 150 IEA: Substance Unchanged, Terminology Updated
Section 153 corresponds to Section 150 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (IEA). The reporting mechanism itself carries forward unchanged; only the description of who can be reported has been modernised.
| Element | IEA, 1872 (Section 150) | BSA, 2023 (Section 153) |
|---|---|---|
| Reporting power | Present, discretionary | Unchanged |
| Class of practitioner covered | "Barrister, pleader, vakil or attorney" | "Advocate" — reflecting the unified category under the Advocates Act, 1961 |
Who Section 153 Actually Affects
- Cross-examining advocates should treat the reasonable-grounds standard in Section 152 as genuinely enforceable, since Section 153 gives it a real professional consequence beyond the trial court's in-court disapproval.
- Trial judges exercise real discretion in deciding whether a question's lack of grounds is serious enough to warrant a report, rather than simply excluding or disregarding the question.
- Bar Councils and High Courts receiving such a report are then responsible for their own separate disciplinary assessment of the advocate's conduct.
- Witnesses subjected to a baseless imputation gain an indirect form of accountability, even though the trial itself does not undo the fact that the question was asked.
- Clients should understand that a report under this section targets the advocate's professional conduct specifically, not the client's case or its outcome.
Key Takeaways
- The power is a professional check, not a trial remedy: Section 153 reports go to the advocate's regulator, not to reshaping the trial's outcome.
- It enforces Section 152's reasonable-grounds requirement: without this reporting mechanism, that requirement would carry little real consequence.
- The power is discretionary: the Court decides, based on its own opinion, whether a question's lack of grounds was serious enough to report.
- Terminology has been modernised: "advocate" replaces the old colonial-era list of "barrister, pleader, vakil or attorney," reflecting the unified profession under the Advocates Act, 1961.
- The substance is unchanged from 1872: Section 153 BSA carries forward Section 150 IEA's reporting mechanism intact.
Conclusion
Section 153 gives real weight to the reasonable-grounds requirement that governs credit-impeaching questions, by ensuring a baseless, damaging imputation does not simply vanish once the trial moves past it. The Court's power to report the matter to an advocate's own regulator keeps professional accountability distinct from the trial's outcome, while still ensuring the requirement in Section 152 is more than words on a page.
For advocates, the lesson is straightforward: a credit-testing question needs a genuine basis before it is asked, not just after the fact. Section 153 is the reminder that the consequences of getting that wrong do not necessarily end when the witness steps down.