The Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023 repealed India’s 1872 Evidence Act and deleted the controversial Section 65B certificate requirement for electronic records. Section 63 BSA 2023 now governs admissibility and replaces certificates with “hash value” as a precondition under Section 63(4)(c). This article provides the first empirical assessment of whether the reform has resolved the “WhatsApp chat dilemma” created by Anvar P.V. v P.K. Basheer (2014) and Arjun Panditrao Khotkar (2020). A mixed-methods study of 82 trial court orders from Delhi and Mumbai between July 2024 and August 2026 reveals that certificate-related rejections fell from 67% to 3.6%. Yet overall rejection of electronic evidence remains at 37.8%, with 61.3% of rejections due to non-production of hash values. Semi-structured interviews with 15 judges, lawyers and police officers show that investigative agencies lack hash-generation infrastructure and trial courts continue to apply 65B habits. Comparative analysis with the UK Civil Evidence Act 1995 and US Federal Rules of Evidence 902(13) indicates that BSA 2023 remains more formalistic.The article argues that India has moved from certificate-formalism to hash-formalism. It recommends:(1) Legislative amendment to Section 63(4) conferring judicial waiver, (2) NCRB Standard Operating Protocol for hash generation, and (3) Mandatory judicial training. Without these, BSA 2023 will not achieve its stated object of simplifying electronic evidence.
Dr. Aarti Singh (Tue,) studied this question.
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