No Seizure Of Journalistic Or Academic Materials From Digital Devices Without Judicial Warrant: Academics Submit Draft Guidelines To Supreme Court

Five academicians who have petitioned the Supreme Court seeking guidelines for the seizure of personal electronic devices by investigating agencies have prepared a set of draft guidelines and have submitted them to the Court. “If the intention is to search such privileged, professional, journalistic, or academic material, then it must only be by a judicial warrant and upon the ground that the said material is directly part of the crime under investigation and not merely evidence of the same.” Search, Retention, And Return of Devices/Material Immediately after seizure of the device, the same shall be produced before an independent agency. The irrelevant, privileged, or personal material so excluded must not be retained, and the device itself should be returned immediately after taking a copy of only the relevant material for the investigation or suspect material.” Owners can't be compelled to give away passwords Under situations of search and seizure, the owners of electronic devices cannot be compelled to give away their password unless they legally bound to do so under statutory provisions like Section 69 Information Technology Act, 2000. With respect to the duty of the investigating officer, it was also highlighted that: “In all circumstances, it shall be the duty of the investigating officer to ensure the extraction of relevant information and timely return to the owner or handing over safe custody to a court or other authority to ensure copies are not accessed by any unauthorised person.” Last but not the least it was also emphasised that if these basic precautions are not adhered with then such material will not be used against the accused person.