Section 65A of Evidence Act "Special provisions as to evidence relating to electronic record"
The contents of electronic records may be proved in accordance with the provisions of section 65B.
Section 65B of Evidence Act "Admissibility of electronic records"
(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, any information contained in an electronic record which is printed on a paper, stored, recorded or copied in optical or magnetic media produced by a computer (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 of any contents of the original or of any fact stated therein or 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 during the period over which the
computer was used regularly to store or process information
for the purposes of any activities regularly carried on over
that period by the person having lawful control over the use
of the computer;
(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 in the ordinary course of the said
activities;
(c) throughout the materiel part of the said period, the
computer 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 in the ordinary course of the said activities.
(3) Where over any period, the functions of storing or
processing information for the purposes of any activities of
any regularly carried on over that period as mentioned in
clause (a) of sub-section (2) was regularly performed by
computer, whether-
(a) by a combination of computers operating over that
period; or
(b) by different computers operating in succession over that
period; or
(c) by different combinations of computers operating in
succession over that period; or
(d) in any other manner involving the successive operation
over that period, in whatever order, of one or more
computers and one or more combinations of computers.
all the computers used for that purpose during that period
shall be treated for the purposes of this section as
constituting a single computer; and references in this
section to a computer shall be construed accordingly.
(4) In any proceedings where it is desired to give a
statement in evidence by virtue of this section, a
certificate doing any of the following things, that is to
say,-
(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;
(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 occupying a responsible official position
in relation to the operation of the relevant device or the
management of the relevant activities (whichever is
appropriate) shall be evidence of any matter stated in the
certificate; and for the purpose 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.
(5) For the purposes of this section,-
(a) information shall be taken to be supplied to a computer
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) whether in the course of activities carried on by any
official, information is supplied with a view to its being
stored or processed for the purposes of those activities by
a computer operated otherwise than in the course of those
activities, that information, if duly supplied to that
computer, shall be taken to be supplied to it in the course
of those activities;
(c) a computer output shall be taken to have been produced
by a computer whether it was produced by it directly or
(with or without human intervention) by means of any
appropriate equipment.
Explanation.- For the purposes of this section any reference
to information being derived from other information shall be
a reference to its being derived there from by calculation,
comparison or any other process.