CEAC-EDB (CEAC-Evidence Drop Box) represents the special service CEAC provides for E Commerce users.
The Objective of this service is to make a “Contingent Evidence” available for admission under the broad principles of Section 65B of Indian Evidence Act.
In the E Commerce transactions, users often rely on presentation made on the website of say Amazon, Flipkart or 99acres.com or other platforms and finalize their decision to purchase.
On C2C platforms like OLX or Quikr, the offers are from individuals and are unique and once accepted, the offers may be removed from the platform and not available for re-visit.
In such cases, if the customer later has a dispute that the product/service as provided was not according to the terms of offer, he may raise a dispute but will need evidence if the dispute needs to be settled through a formal process.
In small ticket transactions with reputed brands, disputes are settled with easy return and replacement offers but this may not work in high ticket transactions or when dealing with C2C transactions.
CEAC which is the pioneer in the service of providing Computer Outputs under Section 65B of Indian Evidence Act which are admissible as evidence without the need for presenting of original electronic document for admissibility in Indian Courts provides a service where by users can submit any web page for CEAC certification.
Presently the service has to be requested before the transaction is completed and it will involve a time delay for completing the purchase.
The CEAC-EDB service addresses this felt need of the market so that a user can submit a page for “Provisional Certification” on real time basis by taking a screen shot and dropping it at the CEAC Evidence Drop box. The request for certification can be made any time within the next 30 days and when requested CEAC will provide a certified copy evidencing the electronic document as dropped into the CEAC system.
If there is no need for certification, the document would be purged after 30 days.
The retrieval of certificate would be subject to service fee of CEAC. CEAC proposes to introduce a “Membership Scheme” so that cost for certification would be reduced from the current levels.
The details of the membership scheme would be announced shortly.
Until the automated dropping system is in place, the documents can be sent through the following e-mail
While sending the request, the sender shall send the following information:
a) Full Name
b) Physical Address
b) Contact Mobile Number
d) Contact E Mail address (By default it will be the sent address)
The request will be acknowledged and further instructions would be made available.
Kindly note that if the mail or the attachment contains any malware, the sender may be black listed and any other required counter action may also be initiated as may be considered necessary.
The submission of the information and certification of archival is considered as “at the request of the user” and reasonable security measures as required under ITA 2000/8 for protecting the confidentiality of the transaction will be provided. The responsibility of CEAC ceases with the provision of the Certificate of Archival and any other service is outside the scope of the Evidence Drop Box Service and has to be separately negotiated.
Watch out for more clarifications on the service.
How to Use the Service
Using this service is a two step process. Firstly a screen shot of the web page which is required as “Potential Evidence” should be captured and sent to CEAC. Secondly a formal request with the name and details of the requester has to be sent.
For capturing the screen shot, the recommended procedure is for the requester is as follows.
- Use Chrome or FireFox browser and install an extension named “FireShot” from the link here.
- After installation the link will appear on the top of the browser as shown here.
- The extension can be configured by right clicking on the extension icon and setting it to open in the context menu. (It is a default option).
- When you are on the relevant page to be captured (eg the page on the e-commerce site where the product being purchased is displayed), right click on the page to open the dialogue box and chose the option “Capture the Entire Page as PDF and E-mail”.
- This will capture the page in PDF format and open the dialogue box where you need to enter the e-mail address of CEAC and send it.
For the time being, we recommend that you bookmark this page to show on the bookmark tab of your browser.
You will receive a manual acknowledgement with further instructions if any. Kindly note that the archived image may be automatically deleted after 30 days.
Naavi
P.S: Kindly note that the E Drop Box facility is meant for voluntary dropping of electronic document by e-mail on a real time basis where the document is likely to be removed after the observation as in the case of a product displayed in an e-commerce site which will be removed after you complete your purchase. This is for “Contingent Evidence” only. The SOP developed is also justified because there is no better way of capturing the evidence for Section 65B certificate at present.
In other cases, the normal CEAC request can be sent to CEAC.
In some cases, it will be necessary for the evidence to be presented in person to Naavi at Bangalore. In some cases, remote observation may be possible.
In most cases the actual work involved cannot be immediately ascertained and hence the cost may not be immediately ascertainable. But Naavi can be contacted for details on the e-mail or phone to ascertain the cost.
CEAC-EDB-Video Service
It has been found necessary that in some occasions, the users of CEAC-EDB would like to drop a real time video. Such requests will require the concurrent presence of a person who will be the Registrar for the session.
On receipt of the request, necessary arrangement can be made. There will be a cost for this purpose based on the duration of the requirement. The recording will be retained for 30 days at a base cost and if it is required as a certified copy, necessary fees would be indicated.
One use case of this requirement is when you have purchased an expensive device like a laptop or a mobile through an online e commerce website and want to record the unboxing to ensure against frauds.
Requests can be sent through e-mail.
Naavi