In September 2014, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court in Anvar P.V. v. P.K. Basheer, (2014) 10 SCC 473, threw out compact discs of allegedly defamatory campaign songs because they arrived in court without a certificate. The contents may well have been genuine; it did not matter. Without the certificate the law demanded, the electronic record was simply inadmissible. That decision, more than any other, defines how Indian courts treat digital evidence — and Section 63 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (BSA) is the provision that now carries the rule forward, updated for a world of smartphones, cloud storage, and messaging apps that the drafters of 2000 never contemplated.
Section 63 is the longest and most litigated provision in Chapter V. It is the successor to Section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (IEA) — itself inserted by the Information Technology Act, 2000 — and it governs when a printout, a copied file, or any other "computer output" of an electronic record may be admitted as a document in its own right.
63. Admissibility of electronic records. (1) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Adhiniyam, any information contained in an electronic record which is printed on paper, stored, recorded or copied in optical or magnetic media or semiconductor memory which is produced by a computer or any communication device or otherwise stored, recorded or copied in any electronic form (hereinafter referred to as the computer output) shall be deemed to be also a document, if the conditions mentioned in this section are satisfied in relation to the information and computer in question and shall be admissible in any proceedings, without further proof or production of the original, as evidence or any contents of the original or of any fact stated therein of which direct evidence would be admissible.
(2) The conditions referred to in sub-section (1) in respect of a computer output shall be the following, namely:—
(a) the computer output containing the information was produced by the computer or communication device during the period over which the computer or communication device was used regularly to create, store or process information for the purposes of any activity regularly carried on over that period by the person having lawful control over the use of the computer or communication device;
(b) during the said period, information of the kind contained in the electronic record or of the kind from which the information so contained is derived was regularly fed into the computer or communication device in the ordinary course of the said activities;
(c) throughout the material part of the said period, the computer or communication device was operating properly or, if not, then in respect of any period in which it was not operating properly or was out of operation during that part of the period, was not such as to affect the electronic record or the accuracy of its contents; and
(d) the information contained in the electronic record reproduces or is derived from such information fed into the computer or communication device in the ordinary course of the said activities.
(3) Where over any period, the function of creating, storing or processing information for the purposes of any activity regularly carried on over that period as mentioned in clause (a) of sub-section (2) was regularly performed by means of one or more computers or communication device, whether—
(a) in standalone mode; or
(b) on a computer system; or
(c) on a computer network; or
(d) on a computer resource enabling information creation or providing information processing and storage; or
(e) through an intermediary,
all the computers or communication devices used for that purpose during that period shall be treated for the purposes of this section as constituting a single computer or communication device; and references in this section to a computer or communication device shall be construed accordingly.
(4) In any proceeding where it is desired to give a statement in evidence by virtue of this section, a certificate doing any of the following things shall be submitted along with the electronic record at each instance where it is being submitted for admission, namely:—
(a) identifying the electronic record containing the statement and describing the manner in which it was produced;
(b) giving such particulars of any device involved in the production of that electronic record as may be appropriate for the purpose of showing that the electronic record was produced by a computer or a communication device referred to in clauses (a) to (e) of sub-section (3);
(c) dealing with any of the matters to which the conditions mentioned in sub-section (2) relate,
and purporting to be signed by a person in charge of the computer or communication device or the management of the relevant activities (whichever is appropriate) and an expert shall be evidence of any matter stated in the certificate; and for the purposes of this sub-section it shall be sufficient for a matter to be stated to the best of the knowledge and belief of the person stating it in the certificate specified in the Schedule.
(5) For the purposes of this section,—
(a) information shall be taken to be supplied to a computer or communication device if it is supplied thereto in any appropriate form and whether it is so supplied directly or (with or without human intervention) by means of any appropriate equipment;
(b) a computer output shall be taken to have been produced by a computer or communication device whether it was produced by it directly or (with or without human intervention) by means of any appropriate equipment or by other electronic means as referred to in clauses (a) to (e) of sub-section (3).
The core idea: a computer output is "deemed to be also a document"
Sub-section (1) performs the central legal move. An electronic record — information printed on paper, or stored, recorded, or copied in optical or magnetic media or semiconductor memory, produced by a computer or communication device — is deemed to be a document. Once so deemed, and once the section's conditions are met, that computer output is admissible without producing the original device, as if direct evidence of its contents were being given. This is what lets a party tender a printout of a WhatsApp chat, a downloaded bank statement, or a CCTV export without wheeling the server or the phone into the courtroom.
What Section 63 changed from Section 65B
The skeleton of Section 63 is Section 65B IEA, but the recodification widened it to match current technology. The additions are deliberate and consequential.
| Feature | Section 65B, IEA | Section 63, BSA |
|---|---|---|
| Storage media covered | Optical or magnetic media | Optical or magnetic media or semiconductor memory |
| Source of the output | A computer | A computer or any communication device |
| Multiple-machine scenarios, sub-section (3) | One or more computers, described generally | Spelt out as clauses (a)–(e): standalone, system, network, computer resource, or through an intermediary |
| When the certificate is filed | To accompany the record | At each instance the record is submitted for admission |
| Who signs the certificate | Responsible official in charge of the device or activity | Person in charge of the device or activity and an expert |
| Form of the certificate | No prescribed form | The certificate specified in the Schedule to the Act |
Two of these deserve emphasis. The extension to "any communication device" and to "semiconductor memory" pulls smartphones, tablets, and flash storage squarely within the provision, closing arguments that once turned on whether a phone was a "computer." And the requirement that the certificate now be signed by a person in charge of the device and an expert, in the form set out in the Schedule, adds a technical-verification layer that Section 65B never demanded.
The four conditions of admissibility
Sub-section (2) sets the substantive gate. All four conditions must be satisfied before a computer output qualifies.
The certificate: a condition precedent, not a formality
Sub-section (4) is where most electronic evidence lives or dies. It requires a certificate that identifies the record, describes how it was produced, gives the particulars of the device, and addresses the sub-section (2) conditions. The journey of the Indian courts to today's position is worth tracing, because it explains why practitioners treat the certificate with such caution.
The starting point was State (NCT of Delhi) v. Navjot Sandhu, (2005) 11 SCC 600 — the Parliament attack case — which allowed electronic records to be proved without a Section 65B certificate, treating them like any other secondary evidence. That door was firmly shut in Anvar P.V. v. P.K. Basheer, (2014) 10 SCC 473, which held the certificate to be a condition precedent and expressly overruled Navjot Sandhu on the point. A brief detour followed in Shafhi Mohammad v. State of Himachal Pradesh, (2018) 2 SCC 801, where a two-judge bench suggested the certificate could be dispensed with when a party did not control the device. The conflict was resolved by a three-judge bench in Arjun Panditrao Khotkar v. Kailash Kushanrao Gorantyal, (2020) 7 SCC 1, which reaffirmed Anvar, overruled Shafhi Mohammad, and clarified two practical points: no certificate is needed if the original device is itself produced and proved, and a party genuinely unable to obtain a certificate may apply to the court to summon it from the person or authority who can give it.
Why sub-section (3) and the Schedule matter in practice
Sub-section (3) is the answer to modern architecture. Data rarely lives on one machine — it moves across systems, networks, cloud resources, and intermediaries. By deeming all the devices used for the activity to be a single computer or communication device, the section spares a litigant from having to certify each server in a chain individually. The express inclusion of "through an intermediary" in clause (e) matters for records routed through service providers and platforms. Meanwhile, tying the certificate to the form "specified in the Schedule" gives courts a standard template, reducing the earlier uncertainty about what a valid certificate had to contain.
Key Takeaways
- Deeming provision: a qualifying computer output is treated as a document, admissible without producing the original device.
- Wider than 65B: Section 63 adds semiconductor memory, "any communication device," an express intermediary route, an expert co-signatory, and a Schedule-prescribed certificate form.
- Four cumulative conditions: regular use, regular feed, proper operation, and faithful reproduction — all must be met.
- Certificate is a condition precedent: the Anvar–Arjun Panditrao line makes it mandatory for secondary electronic evidence; producing the original device is the recognised alternative.
- Object in time: per Sonu @ Amar, a certificate objection must be taken when the record is marked, not for the first time on appeal.
Conclusion
Section 63 is the engine room of digital evidence under the new Act. It keeps the tested architecture of Section 65B — the deeming of computer output as a document, the four conditions, and the pivotal certificate — while widening its language to cover the communication devices and storage formats that dominate modern litigation. The decade of case law from Navjot Sandhu through Anvar, Shafhi Mohammad, and Arjun Panditrao remains directly relevant, because the BSA has retained the certificate rather than abolishing it. For any practitioner tendering a chat log, a call detail record, or a CCTV clip, the discipline is unchanged: satisfy the conditions, obtain the Schedule certificate, and put both before the court at the moment the record goes in.