Criminal Trial. “A conviction must rest on proof, so strong that Court must be convinced that what it concludes must necessarily has happened and is not reasonably explicable in any other way. When the prosecution has relied upon circumstantial evidence, it has to be proved as if there is no proof, than the offence having occurred other than the accused”. Karnataka High Court.

Prathap vs The State of Karnataka. Criminal Appeal 633/2014 decided on 7 October 2020.

Judgment Link: http://judgmenthck.kar.nic.in/judgmentsdsp/bitstream/123456789/347395/1/CRLA633-14-07-10-2020.pdf

Relevant paragraphs: 29.. Any documentary evidence by way of an electronic record under the Evidence Act can be proved only in accordance with the procedure prescribed under Section 65-B in the teeth of Section 59 and 65-A. A plain reading of Section 59 of Evidence Act would indicate all facts, except the contents of documents or electronic records can be proved by oral evidence. …An “electronic record” is defined under the Information and Technology Act, 2000.

30. The purport of the above provisions is to recognize the secondary evidence in electronic form generated by a computer. Section 65-B starts with a non-obstante clause and where 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, would be deemed to be a document and admissible in any proceedings, subject to conditions specified under sub-section (2) are satisfied or in other words, they would 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 of which direct evidence would be admissible. The admissibility of such a document i.e., electronic record, which is known as computer output to be admissible in evidence has to satisfy the four conditions prescribed in clauses (a) to (d) of sub-section (2) of Section 65-B of the Evidence Act. It is only the electronic record which is duly produced in terms of Section 65-B of the Evidence Act, then resort can be had to Section 45-A.

32. In the instant case, we have already noticed that laptop in which the photographs Exs.P-3 to P-30 were found, was not produced. There is no compliance of Section 65-B of the Evidence Act and the person who is said to have downloaded the photographs from the  laptop and had taken the print outs of said photographs has not been examined.

36…Under Section 27 of the Evidence Act, only so much of the statement of accused is admissible in evidence as distinctly leading to discovery of the fact. In other words, when a fact has been discovered, consequent to information given by the accused, would be legal evidence and not the rest and it has to be excluded. Section 27 of the Act cannot be again made use of to “re- discover” the discovered fact.

Evidence discussed thoroughly. Appeal allowed. Accused acquitted.

Compiled by S. Basavaraj, Advocate, Daksha Legal.