Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam
Definition
India's Evidence Act 2023, which replaced the Indian Evidence Act 1872. Section 39 (replacing former s.45) governs the relevance of expert opinion on matters of foreign law, science, art, handwriting, and fingerprint identification.
- Enacted
- 2023, India
- Replaces
- Indian Evidence Act 1872
- Relevant section
- Section 39
- Subject
- Admissibility of expert opinion
Common questions
What changed in the renumbering from the old Evidence Act?+
Section 39 of the BSA carries forward the substance of section 45 of the 1872 Act on expert opinion, so the underlying legal test for admitting expert evidence has not changed, only its numbering and surrounding statutory language.
Does the BSA apply to cases and evidence collected before 2023?+
The Act commenced in 2023, and transitional provisions govern which proceedings fall under it versus the earlier Act, so applicability depends on when the relevant proceeding was filed.
Related terms
- Admissibility
- Whether a piece of evidence is permitted to be placed before the fact-finder at all. Admissibility is a threshold question, decided by...
- Daubert Standard
- The US federal evidentiary standard (Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 1993) requiring that expert testimony be based on scientifically valid methods with...
- FRE 702
- Federal Rule of Evidence 702, the US statutory basis for expert testimony admissibility. Amended in 2000 and again in 2023 to reflect...
- Frye Standard
- The US legal test for admissibility of scientific evidence, originating from Frye v. United States (1923), which required that a technique be...
- Gatekeeping
- The judicial function, codified in the United States by Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals (1993) and Federal Rule of Evidence 702, of...