Important Cases on Electronic Evidence: The Certificate Case Line

No question in Indian evidence law swung harder than the s.65B certificate: optional in 2005, mandatory in 2014, relaxed in 2018, and settled as a condition precedent in 2020, with a 2023 decision softening only the timing. The doctrine now lives in s.63 of the BSA, which codifies the settlement. Topics 9 and 24 use the law; this note, as asked, is the dedicated case digest of how it was made.

1. The Case Line

2005 to the BSA

Figure 1: 2005 to the BSA

📖 Anvar P.V. v. P.K. Basheer, (2014) 10 SCC 473

Facts: An election petition rested on CDs of songs and speeches, copies produced without any s.65B certificate, admitted below on general secondary evidence principles.

Held: Three judges overrule Navjot Sandhu: ss.65A and 65B are a complete code for electronic records, special law excluding the general ss.63 and 65. Any copy of an electronic record is admissible only with the s.65B(4) certificate; the original, the device itself, remains provable by its owner's testimony. The CDs fell, and with them the petition's electronic foundation.

📖 Arjun Panditrao Khotkar v. Kailash Kushanrao Gorantyal, (2020) 7 SCC 1

Facts: Election records again: video recordings of nomination filings, with the election commission's certificate not produced, and the two-judge relaxation of Shafhi Mohammad standing in the field against Anvar.

Held: Three judges reaffirm Anvar: the certificate is a condition precedent to admissibility of any copy; Shafhi Mohammad is overruled and Tomaso Bruno declared per incuriam. Where a party despite effort cannot obtain the certificate, the court's powers to summon and direct its production answer the difficulty, the law never demanding the impossible; the certificate may be produced during trial subject to fairness, and directions issued for preservation of records. The settlement the BSA now codifies.

State (NCT of Delhi) v. Navjot Sandhu (SC, 2005). The Parliament attack appeal: call records admitted as secondary evidence under the general provisions without a s.65B certificate, two judges holding the special provision non-exclusive, the permissive start that governed a decade of trials before Anvar overruled it.
Tomaso Bruno v. State of U.P. (SC, 2015). A three-judge observation treating electronic evidence expansively without noticing Anvar, cited thereafter for relaxation until Arjun Panditrao declared it per incuriam, the cautionary citation, name it only to bury it.
Sonu v. State of Haryana (SC, 2017). CDRs admitted without certificate and unchallenged at trial cannot be attacked for the first time in appeal: an objection to the mode of proof is procedural and waives if not taken when the document is tendered, while relevance objections survive, the stage-of-objection rule.
Shafhi Mohammad v. State of H.P. (SC, 2018). Two judges held the certificate requirement procedural, relaxable where the party does not possess the device, a pragmatic detour inconsistent with Anvar and expressly overruled in 2020; its problem, the genuine difficulty of the non-possessing party, was answered instead by the court's power to compel the certificate.
State of Karnataka v. T. Naseer (SC, 2023). In the 2008 Bangalore blasts trial the certificate was produced years into proceedings: held, the certificate may be produced at any stage of the trial so long as it remains possible and causes no irreversible prejudice to the defence, timing softened, the requirement itself untouched.
The BSA, 2023: s.63. The scheme carried forward and sharpened: admissibility of copies on a certificate in the Schedule's form, now signed by the person in charge of the device or activity and an expert, with the record's hash stated, the statutory absorption of the case line and of forensic practice (Topics 9, 100)

2. Quick Revision

One line per case

Figure 2: One line per case

⚠ Exam trap

Recite the swing in order, Sandhu permissive, Anvar mandatory, Shafhi relaxing, Arjun Panditrao settling, and be precise about what each overruled: Anvar overruled Sandhu, Arjun Panditrao overruled Shafhi and declared Tomaso Bruno per incuriam while affirming Anvar. Add the two softenings that survive, Sonu on the stage of objection and T. Naseer on producing the certificate during trial, and close modern answers at s.63 BSA, whose certificate now needs the person in charge and an expert, with the hash, the point joining this line to forensic practice.

3. Frequently Asked Questions

4. Related Topics

Topic 9: Electronic Evidence. The admissibility framework in full.
Topic 82: Section 79A Examiner. The expert side of the modern certificate.