74. The following documents are public documents:– (1) documents forming the acts or records of the acts- (i) of the sovereign authority, (ii) of official bodies and tribunals, and (iii) of public officers, legislative, judicial and executive of any part of Bangladesh or of the Commonwealth, or of a foreign country; (2) public records kept in Bangladesh of private documents.

75. All other documents are private.

76. Every public officer having the custody of a public document, which any person has a right to inspect, shall give that person on demand a copy of it on payment of the legal fees therefor, together with a certificate written at the foot of such copy that it is a true copy of such document or part thereof, as the case may be, and such certificate shall be dated and subscribed by such officer with his name and his official title, and shall be sealed, whenever such officer is authorized by law to make use of a seal, and such copies so certified shall be called certified copies. Explanation.-Any officer who, by the ordinary course of official duty, is authorized to deliver such copies, shall be deemed to have the custody of such documents within the meaning of this section.

77. Such certified copies may be produced in proof of the contents of the public documents or parts of the public documents of which they purport to be copies.

78. The following public documents may be proved as follows:–

²[(1) Acts, orders or notifications of the Government or any other Government that functioned within the territories now comprised in Bangladesh or any departments thereof by the records of the departments, certified by the heads of those departments, or by any document purporting to be printed by order of any such Government:]

(2) the proceeding of the ³[Parliament and of any legislature which had power to legislate in respect of territories now comprised in Bangladesh,] by the journals of those bodies respectively, or by published Acts or abstracts, or by copies purporting to be printed by order of the Government ⁴[* * *]:

(3) [Omitted by section 3 and 2nd Schedule of the Bangladesh Laws (Revision And Declaration) Act, 1973 (Act No. VIII of 1973).]

(4) the Acts of the Executive or the proceedings of the Legislature of a foreign country, - by journals published by their authority, or commonly received in that country as such, or by a copy certified under the seal of the country or sovereign, or by a recognition thereof in some ⁵[Act of Parliament]:

(5) the proceedings, of a municipal body in Bangladesh,

by a copy of such proceedings, certified by the legal keeper thereof, or by a printed book purporting to be published by the authority of such body:

(6) public documents of any other class in a foreign country,–

by the original, or by a copy certified by the legal keeper thereof, with a certificate under the seal of a notary public, or of a Bangladesh Consul or diplomatic agent, that the copy is duly certified by the officer having the legal custody of the original, and upon proof of the character of the document according to the law of the foreign country.