Yes — electronic evidence can be challenged in an Ahmedabad criminal case, and doing so at precisely the right procedural moment is one of the most powerful and increasingly decisive tools in modern criminal defence before the Ahmedabad Sessions Court and Magistrate courts. With the majority of criminal cases in Ahmedabad now involving WhatsApp messages, call records, CCTV footage, email threads, or social media posts as prosecution evidence, understanding how to challenge electronic evidence correctly — and when — can determine the outcome of your case.

The governing provision for challenging electronic evidence in Ahmedabad criminal proceedings is Section 63(4) of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA) 2023 — which replaced the old Section 65B(4) of the Indian Evidence Act from 1 July 2024 — and the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Arjun Panditrao Khotkar v. Kailash Kushanrao Gorantyal (2021) remains fully operative under the BSA framework. Section 63(4) BSA requires that any electronic record produced as evidence — a WhatsApp message, a screenshot, an email, a CCTV recording, a call detail record — must be accompanied by a certificate from the person responsible for the device or computer system that generated or stored the record. This certificate must identify the device, confirm the integrity of the process by which the electronic record was produced, and be signed by the responsible person. Without this certificate, the electronic record is inadmissible as evidence — but only if you raise a formal objection at the moment the prosecution seeks to exhibit it before the Ahmedabad court.

The critical procedural point that many accused persons and their advocates miss is the timing of the objection. You must raise the Section 63(4) BSA certificate objection at the moment the prosecution witness seeks to exhibit the electronic document — not after it has been marked as an exhibit, and not in the final arguments. Once the Ahmedabad court has marked an electronic document as an exhibit without any objection from the defence, the objection is generally treated as waived and the document is in evidence. Your advocate must be alert and present at every prosecution evidence hearing, specifically monitoring each document sought to be exhibited and raising the admissibility challenge at the precise moment of exhibition where the certificate is absent or defective.

Beyond the certificate challenge, electronic evidence can also be challenged on authenticity grounds — arguing that the WhatsApp messages have been selectively screenshotted to remove context, that the metadata does not support the claimed date and time of a communication, or that the CCTV footage has been edited or its chain of custody broken between recording and production before the court. A forensic expert's report examining the electronic evidence for tampering, selective extraction, or metadata inconsistency can be produced as defence evidence and can powerfully undermine the prosecution's reliance on digital materials.

The legal experts at Aapka Legal Advice — including a panel of retired Gujarat HC justices and former Ahmedabad Sessions Court judges experienced in digital evidence evaluation — advise specifically on which electronic evidence in your Ahmedabad criminal case is vulnerable to a Section 63(4) BSA challenge and how to engage a forensic expert for the authenticity challenge. The Top Criminal Lawyers in Ahmedabad | Aapka Legal Advice platform connects you with criminal trial advocates who raise electronic evidence challenges regularly before the Ahmedabad courts.

Electronic evidence in your Ahmedabad criminal case is not automatically credible simply because it comes from a phone or a camera — challenge it at exhibition, challenge it on authenticity, and make the prosecution prove every procedural requirement that the BSA 2023 demands.