An e-Gazette notification, published on the government's own portal, never touches paper at any point in its life — no ink, no bound volume, no physical filing cabinet. Section 81 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (BSA) makes sure that fact alone does not cost it the same genuineness presumption a printed Official Gazette enjoys under Section 80 — the next article in this backward-moving run.
81. Presumption as to Gazettes in electronic or digital record.
The Court shall presume the genuineness of every electronic or digital record purporting to be the Official Gazette, or purporting to be electronic or digital record directed by any law to be kept by any person, if such electronic or digital record is kept substantially in the form required by law and is produced from proper custody.
Explanation. — For the purposes of this section and section 93, electronic records are said to be in proper custody if they are in the place in which, and looked after by the person with whom such document is required to be kept; but no custody is improper if it is proved to have had a legitimate origin, or the circumstances of the particular case are such as to render that origin probable.
Section 81 corresponds to Section 81A of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, inserted by the Information Technology Act, 2000. As with Section 85's electronic-agreement presumption, the BSA text quietly restores a word the 1872 provision does not use: IEA 81A refers throughout to "electronic record," while Section 81 BSA says "electronic or digital record" at every occurrence. This is confirmed by comparing the text above (sourced independently from two bare-act aggregators) against the current IEA 81A wording — the second such "or digital" restoration confirmed in this project's coverage of this chapter, after Section 85.
Two Documents, One Genuineness Standard
Read Section 80 and Section 81 side by side and the drafting choice becomes obvious: the two sections are near-mirror images, one for physical documents and one for electronic ones, sharing the same three-part structure — genuineness turns on being kept substantially in the statutorily required form and produced from proper custody. What differs is only the medium the presumption attaches to.
| Element | Section 80 (Physical Gazette) | Section 81 (Electronic Gazette) |
|---|---|---|
| What is presumed | Genuineness | Genuineness |
| Form requirement | Kept substantially in the form required by law | Kept substantially in the form required by law |
| Custody requirement | Produced from proper custody (Section 80's own Explanation) | Produced from proper custody (this section's own Explanation) |
| Cross-referenced with | Section 92 (documents thirty years old) | Section 93 (electronic records five years old) |
Why Each Medium Gets Its Own Explanation Instead of Sharing One
It would have been possible to draft a single "proper custody" definition covering both physical and electronic documents. The Act instead gives each medium its own Explanation, tied to its own natural-ageing counterpart — Section 80 links to Section 92's thirty-year-old-document presumption, Section 81 links to Section 93's five-year-old-electronic-record presumption. That five-year-versus-thirty-year gap, already examined in this project's earlier coverage of Section 93, reflects a real engineering judgment: paper genuinely degrades and its custody history genuinely becomes harder to falsify over decades, while electronic storage systems migrate, get replaced, and lose forensic traceability far sooner. Giving each medium a dedicated Explanation, rather than forcing one custody standard onto both, lets the Act calibrate what counts as "proper custody" to how each medium actually behaves over time.
A Practical Illustration
A regulatory penalty depends on a notification published exclusively on the e-Gazette portal, with no corresponding printed edition ever issued. A party challenging the penalty argues the notification's authenticity cannot be established without a physical Gazette copy. Section 81 forecloses that argument directly: because the e-Gazette record is kept substantially in the statutorily required electronic form and produced from the portal's own proper custody, the court may presume its genuineness exactly as it would for a printed Gazette under Section 80 — no lesser evidentiary status attaches merely because the document exists only in electronic form.
Key Takeaways
- Section 81 BSA corresponds to Section 81A IEA (an Information Technology Act, 2000 insertion) but restores "or digital" alongside "electronic" throughout — the second such confirmed wording restoration in this project's coverage, after Section 85.
- It mirrors Section 80's structure precisely, applying the same genuineness presumption to electronic Gazettes and law-mandated electronic records that Section 80 applies to their physical counterparts.
- Each section carries its own "proper custody" Explanation, cross-referenced to its own natural counterpart — Section 80 to Section 92 (thirty-year-old documents), Section 81 to Section 93 (five-year-old electronic records).
- "Proper custody" tolerates gaps in the chain of possession provided a legitimate origin is shown or made probable — it is not a demand for a flawless custody trail.
- This genuineness presumption is separate from, and does not substitute for, the Section 63 BSA certification requirement governing electronic evidence admissibility generally.
Conclusion
Section 81 ensures the shift from printed to electronic Gazettes carries no evidentiary penalty, mirroring Section 80's structure while adapting its custody standard to how electronic records actually age and get stored. Both halves of this Gazette-and-newspaper presumption will be complete once Section 80 follows next; the government-authorised maps and plans of Section 82 were already examined earlier in this run.