Confusion on Section 65B (IEA) caused by an erroneous report ?

Today livelaw.in flashed a report stating that the  Madurai Bench of the High Court of Madras has reportedly observed that “Primary Evidence of electronic record under Section 62 of Indian Evidence Act would be admissible without compliance of Section 65”.

This was directly in contradiction with the Supreme Court judgement in the case of P.V.Anvar Vs P.K.Basheer and raised an eyebrow as to how the High Court could have blatantly ignored.

A copy of the report is available here:  report in Livelaw.in,

However when the order was perused in detail it was found that it was the report which was blatantly wrong and misleading and the order had not said what the report stated.

The Court had before it a petition from the accused of a Dowry harassment case in which the complainant had adduced a CD as evidence while the argument was in progress in the trial Court. The CD was said to contain some conversations but it appears that there was no certification under Section 65B. It also appears that the IO nor the prosecutor had not signed the revision petition. The magistrate had ignored the irregularity and proceeded to admit the evidence.

Naturally the accused objected and brought this petition to challenge the trial court order to accept the evidence.

It appears that this is a case of incorrect reporting by the blog which is regrettable.

Copy of the Judgement is here.

The Court has actually allowed the petition and set aside the trial court’s order to accept the CD as evidence. It has asked the trial court to proceed with the trial based on the existing documents and closed the miscellaneous petition under which the complainant sought to bring in new evidence.

It is interesting to note that the honourable judge in this case was Justice A.M. Basheer Ahamed and it would have been a Basheer overriding the Basheer Judgement if the report had been true!. It would have made an interesting headline for the media but fortunately the report was untrue.

Naavi