Under the newly inserted Ss. 65A and 65B, if the four conditions listed below are satisfied, any information contained in an electronic record which is printed on paper, stored, recorded or copied in an optical or magnetic media, produced by a computer (“computer output”) is to be deemed to be a “document”— and becomes admissible in any proceedings — without further proof or production of the original, as evidence of any contents of the original or any facts stated therein, of which direct evidence would be admissible.
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The four conditions referred to above are:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
(1) The computer output containing such information should have been produced by the computer during the period when the computer was used regularly to store or process information for the purposes of any activities regularly carried on during that period by the person having lawful control over the use of the computer.
(2) During such period, information of the kind contained in the electric record was regularly fed into the computer in the ordinary course of such activities.
(3) Throughout the material part of such period, the computer must have been operating properly. In case the computer was not properly operating during such period, it must be shown that this did not affect the electronic record or the accuracy of its contents.
(4) The information contained in the electronic record should be such as reproduces or is derived from such information fed into the computer in the ordinary course of such activities.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Where in any proceedings, it is desired to give evidence of an electronic record, a Certificate containing the particulars prescribed by S. 65B of the Act, and 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 would be sufficient evidence of the matters stated in such a Certificate.
It is also provided that, if over any period of time, the function of storing or processing information for the purposes of any activities regularly carried on during that period, as mentioned in condition (2) above 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
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(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, of one or more computers and one or more combinations of computers, –
All the computers used for that purpose during that period are to be treated as constituting one single computer.