Bharatiya Sakshi Adhiniyam 2023 passed on 21st December 2023
With the passage of the Bharatiya Sakshi Adhiniyam 2023 in replacement of Indian Evidence Act, a change will be required in the system of presentation of Electronic Evidence.
With this, the Certification process will also change.
For the time being the services of CEAC will be kept in abeyance.
Naavi
What this Cyber Evidence Archival Center is All About
CEAC is a Multifaceted Service providing a “Trusted Third Party Cyber Law Assurance Service” .The service is a first of the kind global service backed by the provisions of Information Technology Act 2000 (ITA 2000) as amended by Information Technology Act 2008 (ITA 2008).
It is difficult to classify the exact nature of this service since it is unique and does not fall into any known slot of services.
-It is more appropriately an offline service, information about which is available in this website.
-Part of the offline service may be rendered by using an online tool like we use a telephone for providing an offline service.
-It is intended to be a service that assists the Judiciary by providing “Admissible Electronic Evidence” in a judicial proceeding. However the service is ordinarily requisitioned and provided at the instance of a petitioner/respondent in a judicial process.
-The deliverable is a “Certificate” issued both in print and electronic form. The Certificate is not a one page document or a copy of an electronic document with a seal and signature or an affidavit with enclosed electronic document. It is often a book which contains the copy of each electronic document certified along with other requirements of Section 65B certification, using the Standard Operating Procedures developed by Naavi. Every certificate is unique. It is believed that Naavi has set standards for the issue of such certificates through his own Standard Operating Procedures developed over time and hence the Certificates issued are in such formats which may be different from what others may issue. While others are free to use their own formats, Naavi believes that CEAC Format of issue of Section 65B certificates is most appropriate. There is an element of proprietary input that is inherent in Naavi’s CEAC certificates on which Naavi has a copyright.
-Though certain options are proposed for membership based services, at present no such membership based service is in operation and hence the service is provided only by Naavi.
-The online information provided here in is free but the offline service of providing certificate under Section 65B of Indian Evidence Act or any other consultancy may be charged.
-The physical location of Naavi is in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. Any request for service is deemed to be made in Bengaluru and the service is also deemed to be rendered in Bengaluru only. When certificates are despatched, the courier whether electronic or physical or postal is deemed to be an agent of the person requisitioning the service.
CEAC was started in 2002 to provide assistance to Cyber Law Practitioners and Law Enforcement Agencies with a service that can convert electronic evidence into admissible paper evidence for the purpose of submission in a Court of Law as per Section 65B of Indian Evidence Act. CEAC is proud to have been associated with the Chennai Police in several Cyber Crime cases for providing evidentiary support including forensic assistance.
The first conviction under ITA 2000 in the case of State of Tamil Nadu Vs Suhas Katti in the AMM Court, Egmore (CC No 4680 of 2004) was based on the evidence provided by CEAC as to the occurrence of the crime on a Yahoo Group. Services of CEAC was also used by the AMM court in one of the defamation cases filed against a publication in Chennai by actress Trisha. (P.S: Copy of the judgement refering to CEAC service in case of Suhaskatti available here. Part 1: Part2). CEAC has provided certified copies of E-Mails, Web pages, electronic documents in a corporate computer etc on various occasions both for presentation in Indian Courts as well as Arbitration Proceedings in India and abroad. It has also provided certification of documents even with remote machines in USA and other towns. Providing certified copies of electronic documents as a part of litigation support services continues to be a major activity of CEAC.
Over the years, CEAC has developed a multifaceted dimension with several service offerings. CEAC has now transformed itself into a unique service portal for all Legal Professionals. The redefined objective of CEAC is to assist advocates any where in India with such tools as are required to make them Cyber Law Proficient advocates. This will include “Education”, “Collaboration”, “Online Information Resources”, “Online Archival Services”, “Online Arbitration Services”,”E-Court Services” etc. The end objective of CEAC is to enable any Cyber Crime victim in India to have an informed assistance readily available to meet the challenge of growing volume of Cyber Crimes.
Explore the different CEAC services by clicking through the menu.
Legal professionals who would like to regularly use the services of CEAC can opt for membership. Members can avail the services of CEAC at concessional rates for conducting online arbitration or mediation proceedings, Virtual meetings, Obtaining CEAC certified copies of electronic documents etc. (Contact Naavi for details)
| Caution: This Service is Not a Notary Service under the Notaries Act 1952. The certification process used by CEAC will follow the principles enunciated in Information technology Act 2000 |
Disclaimer:
Registrants are deemed to have consented to the provision of such information as envisaged in the service and shall not hold CEAC for any damages as a consequence supply of such information.
The service where Certified copies of e-mail are being provided as evidence is being offered under the provisions of Section 65B of Indian Evidence Act for the public good and CEAC shall not be responsible for the certificates being rejected by any institution.
Public may note that no formal approval has been sought or claimed for this service from any authority. It is a purely voluntary service offer and no warranties of any kind are implied.
Browse through “Articles” for more information
Copy of Section 65B of Indian Evidence Act
65B. Admissibility of electronic records.—
(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, any information contained in an electronic record which is printed on a paper, stored, recorded or copied in optical or magnetic media produced by a computer (hereinafter referred to as the computer output) shall be deemed to be also a document, if the conditions mentioned in this section are satisfied in relation to the information and computer in question and shall be admissible in any proceedings, without further proof or production of the original, as evidence of any contents of the original or of any fact stated therein of which direct evidence would be admissible.
(2) The conditions referred to in sub-section (1) in respect of a computer output shall be the following, namely:—
(a) the computer output containing the information was produced by the computer during the period over which the computer was used regularly to store or process information for the purposes of any activities regularly carried on over that period by the person having lawful control over the use of the computer;
(b) during the said period, information of the kind contained in the electronic record or of the kind from which the information so contained is derived was regularly fed into the computer in the ordinary course of the said activities;
(c) throughout the material part of the said period, the computer was operating properly or, if not, then in respect of any period in which it was not operating properly or was out of operation during that part of the period, was not such as to affect the electronic record or the accuracy of its contents; and
(d) the information contained in the electronic record reproduces or is derived from such information fed into the computer in the ordinary course of the said activities.
(3) Where over any period, the function of storing or processing information for the purposes of any activities regularly carried on over that period as mentioned in clause (a) of sub-section (2) was regularly performed by computers, whether—
(a) by a combination of computers operating over that period; or
(b) by different computers operating in succession over that period; or
(c) by different combinations of computers operating in succession over that period; or
(d) in any other manner involving the successive operation over that period, in whatever order, of one or more computers and one or more combinations of computers, all the computers used for that purpose during that period shall be treated for the purposes of this section as constituting a single computer; and references in this section to a computer shall be construed accordingly.
(4) In any proceedings where it is desired to give a statement in evidence by virtue of this section, a certificate doing any of the following things, that is to say,—
(a) identifying the electronic record containing the statement and describing the manner in which it was produced;
(b) giving such particulars of any device involved in the production of that electronic record as may be appropriate for the purpose of showing that the electronic record was produced by a computer;
(c) dealing with any of the matters to which the conditions mentioned in sub-section (2) relate, and purporting to be signed by a person occupying a responsible official position in relation to the operation of the relevant device or the management of the relevant activities (whichever is appropriate) shall be evidence of any matter stated in the certificate; and for the purposes of this sub-section it shall be sufficient for a matter to be stated to the best of the knowledge and belief of the person stating it.
(5) For the purposes of this section,—
(a) information shall be taken to be supplied to a computer, if it is supplied thereto in any appropriate form and whether it is so supplied directly or (with or without human intervention) by means of any appropriate equipment;
(b) whether in the course of activities carried on by any official, information is supplied with a view to its being stored or processed for the purposes of those activities by a computer operated otherwise than in the course of those activities, that information, if duly supplied to that computer, shall be taken to be supplied to it in the course of those activities;
(c) a computer output shall be taken to have been produced by a computer whether it was produced by it directly or (with or without human intervention) by means of any appropriate equipment. Explanation.—For the purposes of this section any reference to information being derived from other information shall be a reference to its being derived therefrom by calculation, comparison or any other process.
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