A Relook At Section 65B Evidence Act Is The Need Of The Hour: SC [Read Judgment]
It is the need of the hour that there is a relook at Section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act, remarked Justice V. Ramasubramaniam in his concurring judgment in the decision holding the mandatory nature of the provision. Though he concurred with the judgment authored by Justice RF Nariman in in which the court held that the certificate required under Section 65B is a condition precedent to the admissibility of evidence by way of electronic record, the judge concluded his opinion as follows: "The major jurisdictions of the world have come to terms with the change of times and the development of technology and finetuned their legislations. Therefore, it is the need of the hour that there is a relook at Section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act, introduced 20 years ago, by Act 21 of 2000, and which has created a huge judicial turmoil, with the law swinging from one extreme to the other in the past 15 years from Navjot Sandhu to Anvar P.V. The judge observed that Section 65B, in its present form, is a poor reproduction of Section 5 of the UK Civil Evidence Act, 1968. He also noted that though a requirement similar to the one under Section 65B of Indian Evidence Act, is there in Canadian law, there is a very important distinction found in the Canadian law.
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