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Hon’ble Justice Raja Vijayaraghavan of Kerala High Court passed an order in the recent case Jisal Rasak v. State of Kerala & Others, that CCTV footage of a crime is not a material object and therefore the accused is entitled to receive a copy of it as per section 207 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The amicus curiae submitted that a combined reading of the “document” and “evidence” together with the provision of the Information Technology Act unambiguously would lead to the conclusion that CCTV footage id definitely “data” which is an “electronic record” that come within the definition of “document”. The court said that with the advancement of technology, the line between things as material things as a document has become more or less irrelevant.
“If a hard disk or a magnetic disk containing data is stolen and the same is seized and produced in court, it may sometimes be difficult to categorize it as a thing produced for the inspection of the court or a document. One way of distinguishing it is by asking a question as to whether the item is relevant in itself or whether the item is relevant because of the information that can be retrieved from it. In other words, if a material thing is produced in court to rely on the data that it contains, it is probably a document and it has to be regarded as such. On the other hand, if the material thing is brought to court to rely on it as it is, it is a thing and maybe exhibited as a material object.”
The reference was made to the Supreme Court Judgement of Tarun Tyagi v, CBI[1] where the court ordered the supply of cloned copies of the hard disk to the accused under section 207 of CrPC. It can only be denied if it contained video footage of sexual violence or footage of terrorism crimes raising the concern of national security.
Court held that “CCTV footage in the instant case is ‘data’ as defined under section 2(o) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and it is an electronic record as defined under section 2(t) of IT Act, so it cannot be considered as a material object under CrPC.
[1] (2017) 4 SCC 490
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