‘Section 65B certificate cannot be manufactured at convenience’: Rajasthan HC acquits Patwari in ACB bribe case

Jodhpur: The Rajasthan High Court has acquitted a Bikaner Patwari convicted of taking a bribe. Justice Farjand Ali set aside the trial court’s conviction of Kana Ram on 17 April 2026. He held that a Section 65B (Indian Evidence Act) certificate produced six years after the trap recordings was inadmissible. The judge ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove demand and acceptance under Sections 7 and 13(1)(d) read with 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

Kana Ram worked as a Patwari at Sub-Tehsil Bajju, Bikaner. The case began on 16 April 2012, when complainant Likhma Ram approached the Anti-Corruption Bureau. He alleged that Kana Ram had demanded a Rs 10,000 bribe to issue a Jamabandi and passbook for 22 bighas of agricultural land. The next day the ACB laid a trap and caught Kana Ram accepting Rs 3,500. The Special Judge, PC Act Cases, Bikaner, convicted him on 21 May 2022 and sentenced him to two years’ simple imprisonment with a fine of Rs 2,000. He appealed to the High Court.

Senior Advocate Madhav Mitra, with Kapil Meena, argued that the prosecution had failed to prove demand and acceptance, and that mere recovery of tainted money could not sustain conviction. The State, through AGA Surendra Bishnoi, opposed the appeal.

Justice Ali first addressed the electronic evidence — the CDs of the recorded conversations between Kana Ram and the complainant. The trap was on 17 April 2012. The Section 65B certificate (which certifies authenticity and chain of custody for electronic records) was filed only on 30 May 2018 — more than six years later. It was produced by trap officer PW-12 on the day he took the witness box. The original tape recorder was never produced, and the CDs were inaudible when played in court. The judge held that Section 65B certification was a “condition precedent” for admissibility, as settled by the Supreme Court in Anvar P.V. v. P.K. Basheer, (2014) 10 SCC 473, and reaffirmed in Arjun Panditrao Khotkar v. Kailash Kushanrao Gorantyal, (2020) 7 SCC 1. A six-year-old certificate prepared after the lacuna was noticed could not save the recordings.

Justice Ali was scathing about the practice. “It appears that only upon entering the Court premises, and possibly upon being so advised by the learned Public Prosecutor or some other person, he perused the file and upon noticing the absence of the mandatory certificate, hastily caused a certificate to be typed within the Court campus and appended his signature thereto before producing the same… Such a perfunctory compliance strikes at the very root of the sanctity and reliability of electronic evidence and cannot be accorded judicial imprimatur,” the judge observed.

With the electronic evidence eschewed and the complainant having resiled from his earlier version, the foundational facts of demand and acceptance remained unproved. The High Court allowed the appeal, set aside the conviction and sentence dated 21 May 2022, and acquitted Kana Ram of all charges. Bail bonds were discharged. The judge also directed the Director General, ACB, to issue circulars requiring contemporaneous Section 65B certification on the same day a recording is made or transcribed. The certificate must be filed along with the charge-sheet.

Case details