Sewa Nand Jat v. State
(2019) 3 RLW 2473
In the High Court of Rajasthan
D.B. Criminal Appeal No. 468 of 2016
Before Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice Vinit Kumar Mathur
Decided on July 1, 2019

Relevancy of the case: Admissibility of Call Data Records under Section 65B.

Statutes & Provisions Involved

• The Information Technology Act, 2000 (Section 2(o), 2(t))
• The Indian Penal Code, 1860 (Section 302, 364, 201)
• The Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (Section 27, 65B)

Relevant Facts of the Case

• The deceased was staying at her maternal house when her husband (Accused-appellant – Sewa Nand) called her on her mobile phone at around 9:30 pm on 03.01.2009 to meet her at a nearby place, after which she never returned.
• Subsequently, the deceased’s body, who was 9 months pregnant, was found the next morning.
• Furthermore, the Addl. Sessions Judge ruled for the appellant. However, the aggrieved defendant challenged the judgement on the admissibility of certain call data records without the Section 65B certificate of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872.

 Prominent Arguments by the Advocates

• The accused’s counsel argued that the call detail records that the prosecution relied on were inadmissible. There was no Section 65B certificate to persuade the court to treat the call detail records as admissible in evidence.
• The learned prosecutor argued that the incriminating call detail records and the mobile tower locations were substantially corroborated by the oral evidence. Hence, this conclusively established that the accused travelled from his village to the place of the incident, called the deceased out of her father’s home and killed her. Furthermore, the call details and tower location details of the deceased’s mobile matched the corresponding tower location of the accused’s mobile phone.

Opinion of the Bench

• The bench observed that per Shafhi Mohammad v. The State of Himachal Pradesh, the procedural requirement under Section 65B(4) of the Indian Evidence Act, regarding the furnishing of the certificate, applies only if the person is in control of the said device.
• However, even if the party does not possess the said device, the procedure must nonetheless be followed to provide access to justice for the accused.
• But the Court can relax the applicability of the procedural certificate requirement in the interest of justice.
• Thus, the bench observed that since the call detail records thoroughly corroborated with oral evidence, they relaxed the Section 65B certificate requirement to prove these call details.

 Final Decision

• The bench thus admitted the call detail records and upheld the district court’s judgement.

इस केस के सारांश को हिंदी में पढ़ने के लिए यहाँ क्लिक करें | To read this case summary in Hindi, click here.

As per our guidelines, we have removed certain information that falls under the category of personally identifiable information (PII). The said guideline is available here.