The Indian Standard Code of Practice, for detailing of reinforced concrete structures subjected to seismic forces, invokes the principles of capacity design in the shear design of frame members. In doing so, a simple method has been proposed to calculate the overstrength moment capacity of sections. In this paper, these design provisions and their intent is reviewed. It is shown that the said code provisions are valid only under certain conditions. The influence of percentage of longitudinal reinforcement and grade of concrete on these code provisions is brought out with a view to caution the designers of the indiscriminate use of these provisions. An alternate to the code procedure to obtain the overstrength moment capacity is also provided in this paper for use by designers when the assumptions behind the code procedure are not valid.