Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Aug 2: Jammu and Kashmir State Judicial Academy today conducted one day workshop on “Adducing Electronic Evidence” for Sessions Judges and Chief Judicial Magistrates of Kashmir province under the guidance and patronage of Chief Patron of State Judicial Academy, Justice N. Paul Vasanthakumar, Chief Justice, High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Committee of Judges, State Judicial Academy (Justice Muzaffar Hussain Attar, Chairman, Justice Hasnain Massodi, Member and Justice Janak Raj Kotwal, Member Committee, State Judicial Academy).
Justice Hasnain Massodi presided over the workshop and, Justice (Retd.) S. N. Jha, former Chief Justice, High Court of Jammu and Kashmir was the chief guest and a Resourse person also. Besides that Dr. Maurya V. Chandra, Advocate, Supreme Court of India and Executive Director, ‘Adyopant Legal Services’, New Delhi was the other Resource person. The proceedings were conducted by Pawan Dev Kotwal, Director, State Judicial Academy.
Justice Massodi, asked the participating judicial officers to make full use of the platform provided by the State Judicial Academy and try to understand the latest techniques of electronic evidence. He dwelt upon the importance of electronic evidence in civil and criminal trials in the society of developed technology.
Justice (Retd.) S. N. Jha deliberated upon the amendments in the Evidence Act incorporating the electronic evidence and referred to various provisions and their importance for the judicial officers while trying cases. He stressed upon the participating officers to update their knowledge and skills technically viz-a-viz amended provisions in view of advanced technology. He further cautioned the participating officers about the mis-use of technology to create false evidence or fabricate the actual evidence.
Dr. Maurya V. Chandra conducted the workshop referring to various decided cases on the electronic evidence and also deliberated upon the “Appreciation of e-mail Evidence in Defamation cases and Electronic Evidence in Criminal Investigation relating to Sexual Harassment at Workplace, Cyber Forensic with possibilities, Role and Limitation”. The Resource person got certain exercises done by the participating officers as to use and mis-use of technology particularly computer and mobile etc. and guarded the officers against the blind faith in the technology.
He also gave various instances where technology can be mis-used to create and fabricate evidence and stressed upon the judicail officers to remain vigilant against such probabilities.
The participating judicial officers interacted freely with the Resource persons and their queries were replied by both the Resource persons.