Digital Evidence in India: Legislative Lacunae and Enforcement Challenges

ABSTRACT
This paper looks at how India has changed its laws on digital proof, moving from the old Indian Evidence Act (IEA) to the new Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA), 2023. The main goal of this research is to find the “Legislative Lacunae” or gaps that still exist and the real-life “Enforcement Challenges” that police and lawyers face. The study uses a doctrinal method, which means it focuses on looking at the actual laws and important court cases like Arjun Panditrao Khotkar v. Kailash Kushanrao Gorantyal (2020).
The shift from the 1872 Act to the 2023 Adhiniyam is a huge step, but it also brings a lot of confusion for the trial courts. While the IEA was made for a time when only paper documents existed, the BSA tries to bring everything into the mobile age. However, simply changing the name of the law doesn’t solve the problem of how we actually handle a phone or a laptop when a crime happens. There is a big conflict between what the law says in Section 63 and how the police actually collect data on the ground.
The findings shows that even though the BSA calls digital files “Primary Evidence” now, it still asks for a special certificate under Section 63, which makes things complicated. The research also found three big problems: there are not enough forensic experts, it is hard to get data from foreign clouds like Google, and there is no strict rule to record “Hash Values” when a phone is first seized. The paper concludes that just changing the law is not enough if we don’t have the right technology and labs. It recommends a new “Digital Seizure Protocol” to make sure the evidence is not tampered with. This study is important for anyone wanting to see how Indian law is trying to keep up with modern technology.