Procedural Lapses in Digital Forensics and the Crisis of Evidence Admissibility Under India’s New Criminal Laws: A Critical Analysis of The Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023

Digital evidence now features in roughly nine out of every ten criminal prosecutions worldwide, yet India’s criminal justice system continues to struggle with meeting the admissibility standards set out in its own laws. This article offers a systematic doctrinal and comparative examination of India’s evolving framework for digital evidence, focusing on the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (BSA), the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS), and how these statutes relate to the certification jurisprudence that emerged from Anvar P.V. v. P.K. Basheer and Arjun Panditrao Khotkar v. Kailash Kushanrao Gorantyal. What the analysis uncovers is deeply concerning: fewer than thirty percent of state forensic laboratories have the infrastructure needed to carry out hash-value verification under BSA Section 63, and fewer than fifteen percent of investigating officers have ever received formal training in digital evidence handling. To address these gaps, the article proposes a four-pillar reform framework drawing on ISO/IEC 27037 and the experience of the United Kingdom’s Forensic Science Regulator Act, 2021.