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Arjun Panditrao Khotkar v. Kailash Kushanrao Gorantyal

Civil Appeal · 2020 INSC 453Decided 14 Jul 2020
Civil Appeal Nos. 20825-20826 of 2017
Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman · Justice S. Ravindra Bhat · Justice V. Ramasubramanian

Background

This case arose from an election petition challenging the victory of Arjun Panditrao Khotkar, who won a Maharashtra Assembly seat by a margin of just 296 votes. The challengers argued that his nomination papers were filed after the official 3:00 PM deadline, and they relied on video-camera footage from the returning officer's office to prove this. The key legal dispute was whether that video footage could be used as evidence in court without a special certificate (under Section 65B(4) of the Evidence Act) confirming how the recording was made and preserved. Because of conflicting earlier Supreme Court rulings on this certificate requirement, the matter was referred to this three-judge bench to settle the law definitively.

Decision Breakdown

The Court held that a certificate under Section 65B(4) is mandatory for any electronic record (CDs, pen drives, call records, CCTV footage, WhatsApp chats, etc.) to be admitted as evidence, except where the original device itself is produced in court, overruling the more flexible "certificate can be waived if impossible to obtain" approach taken in an earlier judgment (Shafhi Mohammad). On the facts, the Court found that the candidate had tried in good faith to obtain the certificate from the Election Commission but was denied it through no fault of his own, yet the underlying legal requirement for late nomination still was not satisfied. The Court dismissed the appeals, upholding the High Court's decision that the election was void, and also issued broader directions for courts and authorities to frame updated rules for handling electronic evidence given how central digital records have become to litigation.

Lesson Learnt

Any electronic record, a CCTV clip, a WhatsApp message, a voice recording, generally cannot be used as evidence in an Indian court unless accompanied by a proper Section 65B certificate confirming its authenticity and chain of custody; parties relying on digital evidence should obtain this certificate at the earliest opportunity, including from courts if a third party refuses to issue one.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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