Facts in Issue and Relevant Facts Under the BSA (Sections 2 and 3): Evidence Act 3 and 5 Mapping (2026)

Explainer · Evidence Law · BSA

Updated for 2026 · Claw Editorial

Before a court hears any evidence, it has to decide what the evidence can even be about. The answer is the backbone of the law of evidence: a party may lead evidence of the facts in issue, and of the facts the law treats as relevant, and of nothing else. Get the categories wrong, and you lead evidence a court will not look at. The Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (BSA), which replaced the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 from 1 July 2024, carries these ideas forward. This explainer defines a fact in issue and a relevant fact, gives the correct BSA section numbers, and maps them to the old Evidence Act. Last verified October 2026.

01Why these definitions come first

The law of evidence works by sorting facts. A trial is not an open inquiry into everything. It is a focused test of the facts that decide the case, and the facts connected to them. Everything else is kept out, to save time and to keep the trial fair.

So the first job is to define two things: the facts that are actually in dispute, called facts in issue, and the facts that are connected closely enough to matter, called relevant facts. Once these are clear, the court knows what evidence it can receive.

02The core definitions (Section 2)

The core terms of evidence are defined in Section 2 of the BSA, which is the interpretation clause of the new Act. The key definitions are these.

• Fact: anything, state of things, or relation of things, that can be perceived by the senses, and any mental condition of which a person is conscious.
• Fact in issue: a fact from which, either alone or together with other facts, the existence, nature, or extent of a right, liability, or disability, asserted or denied in a case, necessarily follows. In short, the facts that are actually in dispute.
• Relevant: one fact is relevant to another when it is connected with it in any of the ways set out in the provisions on relevancy. So relevance is defined by the relevancy rules, not by a free test.
• Proved: a fact is proved when, after considering the matters before it, the court either believes it to exist, or treats its existence as so probable that a prudent person would act on that basis.

A fact in issue is what the parties actually fight about. A relevant fact is what the law lets you prove to win that fight.

An example makes it concrete. If A is tried for the murder of B, that A caused B’s death is a fact in issue. That A had a motive, or was near the place, may be a relevant fact, because the relevancy rules connect it to the fact in issue.

03What evidence may be given (Section 3)

Section 3 of the BSA states the basic rule that follows from the definitions. Evidence may be given, in any suit or proceeding, of the existence or non-existence of every fact in issue, and of such other facts as are declared relevant, and of no others.

This is the gatekeeping rule. It ties the whole Act together: you prove the facts in issue, you prove the relevant facts, and you cannot lead evidence of anything else. An explanation adds that the section does not let a party prove a fact that a procedural law, such as the Code of Civil Procedure, bars them from proving.

04Old law to new law: a numbering note

There is a numbering point that matters, and it is easy to get wrong. In the old Indian Evidence Act, the definitions sat in Section 3, the interpretation clause. In the BSA, those definitions moved to Section 2. The old rule on what evidence may be given sat in Section 5, and in the BSA it became Section 3.

So the definitions you may think of as "Evidence Act Section 3" are now in BSA Section 2, and BSA Section 3 carries the old Section 5 rule. The substance did not change, but the section numbers did. For the wider shift, see key changes from the Evidence Act to the BSA.

05Electronic record now part of evidence

One change in the definitions is worth singling out. The BSA brings electronic and digital records squarely within the meaning of evidence. The definition of evidence covers oral evidence and documentary evidence, and documentary evidence now expressly includes electronic and digital records.

This matters because so much modern proof is digital. Read this with the rules on how electronic records are proved, in electronic evidence under BSA Section 63, and the presumptions about electronic records.

06Practical points

• Start with the facts in issue. Identify exactly what is in dispute, because that fixes what you must prove.
• Tie every fact to relevance. Before you lead a fact, ask which relevancy rule connects it to a fact in issue.
• Do not lead the irrelevant. Section 3 keeps out anything that is neither a fact in issue nor a relevant fact.
• Use the right section number. Cite BSA Section 2 for the definitions and BSA Section 3 for the rule on what evidence may be given.
• Treat digital proof as evidence. Electronic records are within evidence, so plan their proof from the start.

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.

Whether a fact is in issue, and whether a rule of relevancy lets you prove it, is argued in case after case, under both the BSA and the old Evidence Act. Claw reads across more than 30 crore judgments, reaching back to the Supreme Court from 1950 and the High Courts from 1990, and returns what it finds in under five seconds, so you can see how benches have drawn the line between a fact in issue, a relevant fact, and evidence that was shut out. Claw also follows cases, orders and hearings across 9,102 courts, benches and forums, searchable by party name or by advocate name, and it does not use customer case documents to train AI models.

Open a free Claw account and test a relevancy question against the full body of evidence rulings. The case search across Indian courts hub is the place to begin.

08Sources and further reading

• India Code (official text of the BSA, 2023): indiacode.nic.in
• BSA bare text (State police reproduction): uppolice.gov.in
• Claw: clawlaw.in

This explainer is general information, not legal advice. The law changes through amendments and judgments, so check the current text and take advice from counsel before you act.

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