The present paper reviews the shear design (of reinforced concrete beam) provisions of four different national codes and proposes a new but simplified shear strength empirical expression, incorporating variables such as compressive strength of concrete, percentage of longitudinal and vertical steel/s, depth of beam in terms of shear span-to-depth ratio, for reinforced concrete (RC) beams without shear reinforcement. The expression is based on the experimental investigation on RC beams without shear reinforcement. Further, the comparisons of shear design provisions of four National codes viz.: (i) IS 456-2000, (iii) BS 8110-1997, (iv) ACI 318-2002 (v) EuroCode-2-2002 and the proposed expression for the prediction of shear capacity of normal beam/s, have been made by solving a numerical example. The results of the numerical example worked out suggest that there is need for revision in the shear design procedure of different codes. Also, the proposed expression is less conservative among the IS, BS & Eurocode.