Open Access Research Article
DIGITAL EVIDENCE AND CYBER CRIME INVESTIGATION IN INDIA: ISSUES OF ADMISSIBILITY, AUTHENTICATION AND RELIABILITY
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Digital
evidence — mobile-device data, CCTV footage, call-detail records, banking
transaction logs, cloud-hosted communications and server metadata — has become
the evidentiary backbone of contemporary cybercrime investigation and
prosecution in India, yet the legal architecture governing its admissibility,
authentication and reliability continues to generate significant doctrinal
uncertainty and practical difficulty. This paper undertakes a critical,
doctrinal examination of digital evidence law in India following the
replacement of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 by the Bharatiya Sakshya
Adhiniyam, 2023 (“BSA”), which came into force on 1 July 2024. It traces the
jurisprudential evolution of the electronic-evidence certificate requirement
from Section 65B of the erstwhile Evidence Act — through the Supreme Court's
oscillating rulings in Anvar P.V. v. P.K. Basheer, Shafhi Mohammad v. State of
Himachal Pradesh and Arjun Panditrao Khotkar v. Kailash Kishanrao Gorantyal —
to Section 63 of the BSA, which introduces a materially stricter, statutorily
prescribed dual-part certificate architecture requiring hash-value disclosure
and separate declarations from the device custodian and a technical expert. The
paper critically analyses recent 2025-2026 jurisprudence, including Kailash
Pawar v. State of Maharashtra and Chandrabhan Sudam Sanap, which reaffirm and
refine the mandatory character of the Section 63 certificate while clarifying
its inapplicability where electronic evidence is proved through oral witness
testimony rather than the special statutory mode. Beyond the certification
framework, the paper examines the practical realities of cyber forensic
investigation in India — chain-of-custody documentation, hash-based integrity
verification, the institutional divide between government forensic science
laboratories and MeitY-empanelled private laboratories, and the persistent
shortage of trained forensic personnel and standardised forensic tooling across
India's twenty-seven state forensic science laboratories and seven central
forensic science laboratories. Drawing on National Crime Records Bureau data
indicating cybercrime conviction rates below eighteen percent, attributable
substantially to deficient digital evidence handling, the paper identifies
systemic reliability concerns including the absence of certified indigenous
blockchain-forensic capability, jurisdictional obstacles in obtaining evidence
from foreign-headquartered platforms, and inconsistent judicial application of
the certification requirement across trial courts. The paper concludes that
closing the gap between digital evidence law's doctrinal sophistication and its
practical enforcement will require standardised forensic protocols, expanded
institutional forensic capacity, judicial training, and legislative attention
to emerging evidentiary categories such as artificial-intelligence-generated
content.
Published Paper
Author Details
Authors: SAHIL SEHRAWAT
Registration ID: 1013067 | Published Paper ID: IJLRA13067
Year: Aug-2026 | Volume: 3 | Issue: 5
Approved ISSN: 2582-6433 | Country: Delhi, India
Page No.: 1747-1768
Article Information
DIGITAL EVIDENCE AND CYBER CRIME INVESTIGATION IN INDIA: ISSUES OF ADMISSIBILITY, AUTHENTICATION AND RELIABILITY
Authors: SAHIL SEHRAWAT
- Journal IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
- Volume 3
- Issue 5
About Journal
International Journal for Legal Research and Analysis
- AbbreviationIJLRA
- ISSN2582-6433
- AccessOpen Access
- LicenseCC 4.0
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