New Delhi: While courts across the country continue to hold varying views over the admissibility of WhatsApp exchanges in a court of law, the Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court said earlier this month that a complaint to the police sent as a text message on WhatsApp is “substantial compliance” with the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPc), which detail the process of filing a first information report (FIR).
The observation came while the court was hearing a plea challenging the filing of an FIR based on a complaint received over WhatsApp in a case of property dispute. The complainant had subsequently moved the chief judicial magistrate’s court in Srinagar, claiming that Srinagar Police had failed to take action on the complaint.
According to the HC order, acting on the complainant’s petition the magistrate’s court ordered Srinagar Police to conduct an inquiry in the case.
However, the filing of the FIR following the magistrate’s order was challenged in high court by one of the parties involved in the dispute, on grounds that provisions of the CrPc — which require informing a police officer and the station house officer (SHO) about a complaint for the FIR to be filed — were not complied with, as the complaint was communicated over WhatsApp to the SHO’s number.
However, the high court this month held that a complaint communicated over WhatsApp also amounts to compliance with the legal provisions of filing an FIR.
In India, a complaint made over email is already allowed to be registered as an FIR under the Information Technology Act, 2000, read with the procedural law.
The J&K and Ladakh HC decision on WhatsApp complaints comes at a time when courts across India have been raising questions over the validity of WhatsApp chats as evidence in courts of law, with some orders denying their admissibility in litigation.
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‘Complied with provisions’
According to Section 154 of the CrPc, information relating to a cognisable offence must first be given to a police officer. If the information is communicated orally, the police officer must put that down in writing.
The complaint must then be signed by the complainant and maintained in a book.
If this is not followed and FIR is not registered, the CrPc section allows for the complainant to approach the in-charge of a police station to record the information.
In case that too doesn’t help, one has the option to approach the magistrate.
While hearing the present case, Justice Javed Iqbal Wani of the Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh HC held that the provisions of Section 154 of the CrPc can be said to have been “seemingly” fulfilled.
The court further said that the WhatsApp chat of the complainant with the SHO, where the complainant had made a complaint to the officer amounted to substantial compliance with the provisions of Section 154 of the CrPc.
“The aforesaid facts essentially amounts to substantial compliance of section 154 (1) and 154 (3) CrPC and as such the complainant respondent herein can safely be said to have complied with the said requirement for invoking the provisions…,” the court said in its order.
Justice Wani also noted that even if the WhatsApp chat was not a part of the initial complaint, since the procedure had been complied with, it would have no impact on the present complaint before the magistrate.
Past judgments
Courts across India have over the past few years, however, given varying orders on the admissibility of WhatsApp exchanges in litigation.
In 2021, a Supreme Court bench of then Chief Justice, N.V. Ramana, and Justices A.S. Bopanna and Hrishikesh Roy, had said that anything can be created or destroyed on WhatsApp and there is no evidentiary value of such messages.
“We don’t attach any value to the WhatsApp messages”, the top Court had then said, while overruling the Calcutta HC’s decision which had admitted the chats as evidence in a case of municipal corporation contract dispute.
High courts have also previously said that “forwarded” messages on WhatsApp may not be used as evidence as it does not qualify as a document under evidence law.
A year before dismissing the evidentiary value of WhatsApp messages in the municipal corporation contract dispute case, the Supreme Court had given a completely opposite decision in the ‘Ambalal Sarabhai Enterprise … vs Ks Infraspace Llp Limited’ case of 2020
In that case, the court had said that such messages, which are verbal communications, are a matter of “cumulative deciphering” of such communication by the court.
“The emails and WhatsApp messages will have to be read and understood cumulatively to decipher whether there was a conclude,” the court had said, allowing such chats to be used as evidence.
There are also instances of high courts allowing such chats to be used as evidence in contraband and matrimonial cases.
And earlier this year, the Punjab and Haryana High Court warned an accused against deleting WhatsApp chat history as one of the conditions for granting bail.
Akshat Jain is a student of the National Law University, Delhi, and an intern with ThePrint.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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