Admissibility of Electronic Evidence

The Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 recognises electronic and digital records as documentary evidence and does not exclude them merely because of their electronic form. Under Sections 61-63, their contents must be proved through the prescribed safeguards concerning regular use, reliability and certification.

Statutory basis

Under Section 61, an electronic or digital record has the same legal effect, validity and enforceability as any other document, subject to Section 63. Section 62 requires its contents to be proved in accordance with Section 63.

Conditions for admitting a computer output

Under Section 63, information printed, stored, recorded or copied from a computer or communication device is deemed to be a document if the statutory conditions are satisfied.

• The device must have been regularly used, under lawful control, for activities regularly carried on during the relevant period.
• Information of the relevant kind must have been regularly fed into the device in the ordinary course of those activities.
• The device must have operated properly during the material period; any malfunction must not have affected the record or the accuracy of its contents.
• The output must reproduce, or be derived from, information fed into the device in the ordinary course.

Certificate accompanying the record

A Section 63 certificate must accompany the electronic record whenever it is submitted for admission through this route.

• It must identify the electronic record and describe how it was produced.
• It must provide appropriate particulars of the device or connected system involved.
• It must address the statutory conditions concerning regular use, ordinary-course input and proper operation.
• It must purport to be signed by the person responsible for the device or relevant activity and by an expert; statements may be made to the best of the signatories' knowledge and belief.
• Where several devices, networks, computer resources or intermediaries operate together, they may be treated as a single computer or communication device for applying these requirements.