WhatsApp forward cannot be treated as document under the Evidence Act: Delhi HC

The Delhi High court threw out a writ petition filed by the National Lawyers Campaign for Judicial Transformation and Reforms and others. The petition asked for an FIR to be registered based on the contents of a suicide note allegedly written by the late chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh, Kalikho Pul. The court did not accept as evidence the WhatsApp forward of the alleged suicide note, pointing out that it was impossible to accept the WhatsApp forward as evidence without backing up by the original document. Further, the court found that the petitioners did not have access to the original document, and thus had not way to verify the contents of the WhatsApp forward. When questioned about the source of the document, the petitioners just mentioned that they had received it on social media, without clarifying who sent the message, and which of the petitioners received it. The case was dismissed as the petitioners did not know if the alleged note was accurate, and admitted that they had not formed a belief that the document was accurate. The hearing wasted about an hour and a half of the time of the judge. Due to the time spent pursuing the case by the judge, both the petitioners have been Rs 25,000 each. A copy of the entire judgement is available at  LiveLaw.in.