Recusant Witnesses Act, 1853

This 1853 Act originally amended the law of evidence in the civil courts of the East India Company in the Bengal Presidency, but almost all of its provisions have since been repealed by later laws, principally the Code of Civil Procedure-era Act X of 1861 and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. The extract's table of contents lists 44 sections, the overwhelming majority of which are simply marked "Repeal" -- meaning they no longer have legal effect.

The one substantive provision that survives is Section 26, which deals with witnesses who avoid being served with a court summons or who refuse to give evidence or produce a document once in court. It makes such a person liable in a civil action to pay damages to the party who sought their testimony or the document, for any losses that party suffered because of the witness's refusal, absconding, or evasion.

Sections 27 through 39, which had covered related matters like liability of an absconding person's property, costs, fines, appeals, and rules for taking evidence, were all repealed by Act X of 1861. Section 40 (on filing documents with pleadings) was repealed by a separate 1855 Act, and Sections 41-44 (territorial extent and commencement) were also repealed.

This is a very old, almost entirely repealed statute (1853) that survives today essentially only for its Section 26 rule on witnesses evading service or refusing to testify, and it should be treated as historical background rather than a comprehensive current source of evidence law -- the modern Indian/Pakistan Evidence Act framework has superseded most of it.