TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2018 (4) TMI 1613
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....ad applied for a loan of Rs. 15 Lakhs. He entered into a loan agreement/credit facility application form with the Bank. The original loan agreement is exhibited as Ex.PW-1/2 on record. The Bank had disbursed a loan of Rs. 15 Lakhs to the Defendants in terms of the loan agreement no.11216814 dated 1st March, 2007. The Defendants had to repay the loan in equal monthly instalments out of which some instalments were in fact paid by the Defendants. There were, however, unpaid outstanding instalments because of which loan recall notice was issued on 21st May, 2010. Despite issuance of the loan recall notice, the Defendants did not make payment of the outstanding amount leading to the filing of the suit. 4. The suit was initially filed under Section XXXVII of CPC which was converted to an ordinary suit by the Trial Court. Initially the order sheets of the Trial Court reveal that the Defendants were not served despite repeated attempts. Since the Defendants could not be served, steps for publication were taken and notice was published in the newspapers "Veer Arjun and Statesman" dated 20th January, 2012. Despite service through publication, none appeared for the Defendants. Vide order d....
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....4. Section 34 of the Evidence Act clearly provides that the books of accounts maintained in electronic form are relevant. Under Section 62 of the Evidence Act, original documents constitute primary evidence. In the context of electronic evidence, printouts of electronic documents are considered as secondary. However, judicial notice needs to be taken of the fact that most accounts today are not maintained in paper form, but electronic form. The primary evidence could be the server on which the statement of accounts is stored. These servers may store the statement of accounts of multiple clients in the hard drive. It would be an impossibility to require the Plaintiff bank to produce the hard drive of the server in every suit for recovery filed by it. Under such circumstances, the Plaintiff bank has no option but to produce the secondary evidence i.e., a printout of statement of accounts, duly certified by a responsible official of the bank along with a certificate under Section 65B of the Evidence Act. Needless to add, the certificate under Section 65B of the Evidence Act has now become a usual practice in almost all of the suits, inasmuch as, in every such suit, parties are bound t....
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....ting properly for some time, the break or breaks had not affected either the record or the accuracy of its contents; and (iv) The information contained in the record should be a reproduction or derivation from the information fed into the computer in the ordinary course of the said activity. 14. Under Section 65B(4) of the Evidence Act, if it is desired to give a statement in any proceedings pertaining to an electronic record, it is permissible provided the following conditions are satisfied: (a) There must be a certificate which identifies the electronic record containing the statement; (b) The certificate must describe the manner in which the electronic record was produced; (c) The certificate must furnish the particulars of the device involved in the production of that record; (d) The certificate must deal with the applicable conditions mentioned Under Section 65B(2) of the Evidence Act; and (e) The certificate must be signed by a person occupying a responsible official position in relation to the operation of the relevant device. 15. It is further clarified that the person need only to sta....
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.... to that electronic record, is inadmissible." 15. The above judgement was followed in Harpal Singh v. State of Punjab AIR 2016 SC 5389 and by a Division Bench of this Court in Kundan Singh v. State I (2016) CCR1 (Del.). A Single Judge of this Court, relying on Anvar v. Basheer (supra), in ELI Lilly v. Maiden Pharmaceuticals 2017 (161) DRJ 65 held as under: "18. Though the ratio of Anvar P.V. supra, to me, appears to require the certificate/affidavit under Section 65-B of the Evidence Act to accompany the electronic record when produced in the Court, and a learned Single Judge of this Court also in Ankur Chawla vs. Central Bureau of Investigation opining so acquitted the petitioner/accused therein (though the SLP is pending in the Supreme Court) but a Single Judge of the High Court of Rajasthan in Paras Jain Vs. State of Rajasthan did not agree with the judgment of this Court in Ankur Chawla supra observing that "when legal position is that additional evidence, oral or documentary, can be produced during the course of trial if in the opinion of the Court production of it is essential for the proper disposal of the case, how it can be held that the certificate as re....
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....ic documents are involved, it would be impractical to expect the parties to produce the primary evidence which would be the medium on which the document is stored, considering that electronic documents could be stored on hard drives, hard disks, CPUs, micro-processors, cameras, telephones, etc. Certificates under Section 65B accompanying the printouts have simply become standard formats. Cross examination on these certificates can involve debates on model of computer, printer, questions as to who took printouts etc. Courts, therefore, need to take a pragmatic attitude in these cases. Unless there is a serious challenge to the electronic documents i.e., tampering, forgery, hacking, misuse of an email address, change in contents etc., usually printouts of electronic documents ought to be allowed to be read in evidence. The complex procedure laid down for proving of electronic documents can prove to be extremely cumbersome and can have enormous impact especially in commercial transactions, as it has had in the present case." 6. The Trial Court appears to have taken an over-technical approach in this matter by holding that in view of the defects in the certificate under Section 65B ....