Commissions Under Order 26 CPC: Local Investigation and Evidence (2026)

Explainer · Civil Procedure · CPC

Updated for 2026 · Claw Editorial

A civil court cannot always see the thing in dispute for itself. It cannot visit a disputed boundary, go through years of accounts, or examine a sick witness in person. Order 26 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 lets the court appoint a commissioner to do a specific task and report back. This explainer sets out the main kinds of commission, what a commissioner can and cannot do, how the report is used as evidence, and the limits courts have placed on the power. Last verified October 2026.

01Why a court needs a commissioner

Some questions in a civil suit cannot be answered from the courtroom. Who has encroached on whose land, what crops stand on a disputed field, how a partnership account actually balances, or how a property should be physically divided. These need a person to go to the spot, look, measure, and record what they find.

Order 26 gives the court a way to do this without leaving the bench. It delegates a defined task to a commissioner, who carries it out and returns a report. The report helps the court decide the case, but it does not take the decision away from the court.

02What Order 26 covers

Order 26 of the CPC, read with Section 75, lets a court issue a commission for several defined purposes. The court acts when it is just and convenient to do so, and the commissioner must stay within the task the order sets.

• to examine a witness who cannot attend court;
• to make a local investigation of a disputed place or thing;
• to examine or adjust accounts;
• to make a partition of property;
• to hold a scientific, technical or expert investigation, or to sell property, or to do a ministerial act, in the situations the rules allow.

03The main kinds of commission

The rules group commissions by the task.

There are also provisions for a scientific or expert investigation and for the sale of movable property, used where the court needs technical help or a quick sale. Each kind of commission has its own procedure, but all share the same backbone: a defined task, a report, and the court decision on the report.

04Local investigation in detail

Local investigation under Rule 9 is the most common use in property suits. The court may issue a commission for a local investigation where it considers it requisite or proper to elucidate any matter in dispute, or to ascertain the market value of property, the amount of mesne profits, damages, or annual net profits.

The commissioner visits the site, makes the inspection the task needs, and under Rule 10 returns the recorded evidence and a signed written report to the court. The report and the evidence then form part of the record. Where the local rules of a High Court say who may be appointed, the court is bound by those rules.

05The commissioner report as evidence

The commissioner report and the evidence taken are part of the record of the suit, but they are not the final word. The court can accept the report, reject it, or send it back for further inquiry. A party who objects to the report can file objections, and the court decides them.

This is the key point for counsel: a favourable commissioner report helps, but it must still survive objections and the court own assessment. A report is evidence to be weighed, not a verdict. Where a court needs to pass further directions to make the commission work fairly, it can also draw on its inherent powers under Section 151 of the CPC.

A commissioner report is evidence the court weighs, not a verdict. The court can accept it, reject it, or send it back.

06Limits on the power

Courts have set clear limits. A commission for local investigation is meant to help the court understand a matter in dispute, not to let a party create evidence in its own favour or to prove a case it should prove by its own witnesses. A court will not appoint a commissioner merely to collect evidence that the party could and should lead itself.

For a scientific or technical investigation, courts have required that the specific conditions in the rule are all met before the power is used, treating them as a necessary precondition. The common thread is that a commission is a focused tool for a defined task, used when it is genuinely just and convenient, and kept within the order that issued it.

07Where Claw fits

Claw is an all-in-one legaltech platform for Indian advocates, law firms, and corporate legal teams, combining AI-based case search, an AI legal assistant (Legal GPT), case management, and compliance automation across all Indian courts and tribunals.

Deciding whether to seek a commission, or how to meet objections to a commissioner report, is easier once you can see how similar references have fared. Claw lets you search more than 30 crore judgments by party, by advocate or by the Order 26 point at hand and returns them in under 5 seconds, so you can read how a court has weighed a local investigation report or a request for a scientific investigation. For a matter where a commission is in issue, it also tracks the cases, orders and hearings across 9,102 courts, benches and forums, so you follow each step as it is taken.

Claw does not use the case papers you add to train its AI models. Create a free Claw account to research commissioner reports and keep your commission matter on watch. To search the wider body of law, see case search across Indian courts.

08Sources and further reading

• India Code (official text of the CPC, 1908): indiacode.nic.in
• Order 26, CPC (bare text): devgan.in/cpc
• iPleaders (commentary on commissions for local investigation): blog.ipleaders.in
• Claw: clawlaw.in

This explainer is general information, not legal advice. The power is applied on the facts of each case, so check the current text and take advice from counsel before you act.

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