Indian Evidence Law Book Pdf

Summary Today is the age of information technology. The country is focusing on the agenda – «Digital India». The legal sector is also moving towards the digitalisation of legal work. Electronic courts are being set up. As the court moves towards digitization, the pertinent question is how much weight to give to this digital evidence in court. The relevance and admissibility of digital evidence is no longer disputed following the amendment of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the amendment of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. However, the admissibility of this digital evidence is subject to certain conditions set out in the Indian Evidence Act. Digital evidence, known as electronic documents, has been admitted as documentary evidence under section 3 of the Act, which states that «all documents, including electronic records, prepared for inspection by the court shall be considered documentary evidence.» The difference is that, unlike electronic documents, oral testimony presented in evidence is called oral evidence. The evaluation of digital evidence in the context of criminal offences differs significantly from the evaluation of traditional evidence because there are no established standards, procedures and methods for digital forensics that courts could refer to. The author addressed not only the admissibility of these different types of digital evidence (recorded conversation, e-mail conversation, CD, mobile communication, mobile messages, Facebook and Whatsapp, staging operation, videoconferencing, etc.), but also the procedures and conditions of admissibility of digital evidence.

This article also explored the role of cyber-forensics and expert opinion in this regard. Since the admissibility of digital evidence is one thing and the reliability of this type of evidence is another, an attempt has been made here to critically examine the reliability of digital evidence and to assess its probative value separately. The extent to which this type of digital evidence is evaluated by the courts in order to treat it as conclusive evidence of a disputed fact is examined in this work. Digital evidence gathering is not only a systematic inspection of computers or mobile phones, etc., but a more complex and important task, as it determines civil or criminal liability. Since there is no specific test for determining whether or not numerical evidence has the required scientific validity, the author would like to suggest some factors to consider in this context. Keywords: digital evidence, electronic records, cyberforensics, relevance, eligibility, appreciation, reliability. This research helps students and other researchers on the subject.