Law & Policy
In Electronic Mode: The Permission Section 530 Gives, and the Conditions Every Other Section Attached
28 October 2026 · 12 min read
A procedural code that allows a step to be taken remotely has to answer three questions that do not arise when everyone is in the room. Who decides that the step will be taken that way. What has to be true before it can be. And what, if anything, must still happen physically. A provision that permits the remote step without answering any of the three has not regulated the practice; it has only authorised it.
The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 answers those questions in a great many places and declines to answer them in one. The declining is done by section 530, which is the widest provision in the Sanhita on the subject and states no condition at all.
What the Sanhita Does Section by Section
The Sanhita's electronic provisions are scattered through it, and they are not drafted as a scheme. Each one attaches itself to a particular step and settles what that step requires.
Some of them prescribe a form. Section 63 gives a summons two alternative forms: in writing, in duplicate, signed and bearing the seal of the Court; or "in an encrypted or any other form of electronic communication", in which case it "shall bear the image of the seal of the Court or digital signature". The electronic summons is not the written summons sent by another route; it is a second instrument with its own requirements.
Some of them name a person who must be present. Under the first proviso to section 183(1), a confession or statement recorded by a Magistrate "may also be recorded by audio-video electronic means in the presence of the advocate of the person accused of an offence". The proviso to section 310(1) repeats the condition for evidence in warrant-cases tried by a Magistrate: it may be recorded by audio-video electronic means "in the presence of the advocate of the person accused of the offence". In both places the electronic route is opened and an attendance is made a condition of it.
Some of them name a place. The second proviso to section 265(3) permits the examination of a prosecution witness in a warrant-case before a Magistrate to be done by audio-video electronic means "at the designated place to be notified by the State Government". The second proviso to section 266(2) says the same for a defence witness. Section 308, which requires evidence to be taken in the presence of the accused or, where personal attendance is dispensed with, of his advocate, admits audio-video electronic means on the same terms — "at the designated place to be notified by the State Government". Remote attendance under these sections is not attendance from anywhere.
Some of them set a floor. Section 187(4) provides that no Magistrate shall authorise police custody unless the accused is produced in person the first time and every subsequent time while he remains in police custody, and that only further detention in judicial custody may be extended "on production of the accused either in person or through the audio-video electronic means". The distinction drawn is not between kinds of case but between kinds of custody, and the stricter requirement attaches to the custody in which the accused is in the hands of the investigating agency.
Some of them set a time. Where an accused in custody is examined through electronic communication, the proviso to section 316(4) requires his signature to be taken within seventy-two hours of the examination. The record is not complete when the examination ends.
And some make the electronic record compulsory rather than optional. Section 105 requires the process of search and seizure, including the preparation and signing of the list of things seized, to be recorded through audio-video electronic means. The proviso to section 54 requires the identification of an arrested person by a mentally or physically disabled identifier, which must take place under a Magistrate's supervision, to be recorded by audio-video electronic means. The fourth proviso to section 183(6)(a) requires the statement of a disabled maker, recorded with the assistance of an interpreter or special educator, to be recorded through audio-video electronic means "preferably by mobile phone" — and clause (b) then treats that statement as a statement in lieu of examination-in-chief.
Others again make the mode available without a condition of their own, inside a provision that names the stage and the authority conducting it: the proviso to section 254(1) and section 254(2) for prosecution evidence and the deposition of a public servant before a Court of Session; section 251(2), where a charge framed by a Court of Session is read and explained to an accused "present either physically or through audio-video electronic means"; section 262(2), where the Magistrate examines the accused on a discharge application "either physically or through audio-video electronic means, as the Magistrate thinks necessary"; the second proviso to section 336, where the deposition of a successor public servant "may be allowed through audio-video electronic means"; the Explanation to section 355, which declares that for the purpose of that section — the section under which a Judge or Magistrate dispenses with the accused's attendance altogether — personal attendance of the accused includes attendance through audio-video electronic means; and section 392(5), under which an accused in custody is brought up to hear the judgment "either in person or through audio-video electronic means".
Taken together these provisions are a considered distribution. They do not treat the electronic mode as one thing. They treat it as a different thing at each stage, and they attach a different safeguard at each stage, and in at least one place — the production of an accused in police custody — they refuse it altogether.
What Section 530 Does
Section 530 sits in Chapter XXXIX, headed Miscellaneous, between the duty of a High Court to superintend its subordinate courts and the repeal of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. It is a single sentence. All trials, inquiries and proceedings under the Sanhita may be held in electronic mode, it provides, and it names four things that are included:
(i) issuance, service and execution of summons and warrant;
(ii) examination of complainant and witnesses;
(iii) recording of evidence in inquiries and trials; and
(iv) all appellate proceedings or any other proceeding,
The permission that follows the list is that they "may be held in electronic mode, by use of electronic communication or use of audio-video electronic means".
There is no proviso. There is no sub-section. The verb is in the passive, so the sentence names nobody who decides. It requires no application, no consent, no satisfaction and no reasons. It names no place. It sets no floor. It does not say that anything that has to be done physically must still be done physically.
The two means it permits are defined. "Electronic communication" is defined in section 2(1)(i) by reference to the devices through which the information passes. "Audio-video electronic means" is defined in section 2(1)(a) inclusively, and the definition ends by extending itself to "such other purposes and by such other means as the State Government may, by rules provide". So the content of the permission section 530 grants can be enlarged by a State's rules, while the conditions that the other sections impose, being in the sections, cannot be relaxed the same way. The open end of the definition runs in one direction only.
Three Readings, Each With a Cost
If section 530 is read as a self-executing permission that operates on its own terms, then every condition in the sections surveyed above is optional. A witness whose examination under section 265(3) must be at a designated place notified by the State Government could be examined under section 530 from anywhere. A confession that section 183(1) permits to be recorded electronically only in the presence of the accused's advocate could be recorded under section 530 without him. An accused whom section 187(4) requires to be produced in person before police custody is authorised could be produced under section 530 on a screen. That cannot be the reading. A general provision is not ordinarily taken to dispense with the conditions a special provision attaches to the same act, and a construction that makes three separate safeguards avoidable at the election of the party who would otherwise have to satisfy them is not a construction of the Sanhita but a way around it.
If section 530 is read as declaratory — as a statement of the direction the specific provisions take, adding nothing operative — then three of its four clauses are surplus. Issuance of summons and warrants is already provided for by section 63 and the proviso to section 227, which permits summons or warrants to be issued through electronic means. Electronic service of summons is already provided for by the proviso to section 64(2), which conditions it on the form and manner the State Government may provide by rules, and by section 71(1), which allows a copy to be served on a witness by electronic communication but only "in addition to and simultaneously with" the ordinary summons. The examination of witnesses and the recording of evidence in a trial are already provided for by sections 254, 265, 266, 308 and 310. On this reading section 530 says again, without conditions, what five or six sections have already said with them.
If section 530 is read as residual — operating only where the Sanhita has made no specific provision — then its real content is clause (iv). Appeals, revisions, references and interlocutory applications are proceedings for which the Sanhita makes no provision of its own for holding the hearing in electronic mode — what it provides for in that part is the transmission of papers, as section 412 does when it allows the proper officer of a High Court to send a confirmation order to the Court of Session physically or through electronic means. Section 530 supplies the authority for the hearing. This is the reading that does least violence to the rest of the Sanhita, and it is probably right. But it has a consequence worth stating plainly: on this reading the section's operative part is its last clause, and clauses (i) to (iii) are its weakest, because each item in them is governed by a provision that imposes a condition section 530 omits.
What Is Missing in Every Reading
Two gaps survive all three readings.
The first is the absence of a decider. Every other electronic provision in the Sanhita either makes the mode compulsory — "shall be recorded" in sections 54, 105 and 183(6)(a) — or gives the choice to a named authority in language that implies a decision: the Magistrate "may permit", the deposition "may be allowed", the examination is made "as the Magistrate thinks necessary". Section 530 says "may be held". An accused who objects to a witness being examined remotely, or to a hearing being held on a screen, has no provision under which to frame the objection, and no finding to carry up in revision, because the section calls for none. Where the Sanhita has given a specific provision, the objection can be framed on the condition that provision imposes. Where it has not, section 530 leaves the litigant arguing against a sentence that has no requirements to fail.
The second is form. The proviso to section 227 permits a warrant to be issued through electronic means, and clause (i) of section 530 includes the issuance and execution of a warrant in electronic mode. But section 72(1) continues to require that every warrant of arrest issued by a Court "shall be in writing, signed by the presiding officer of such Court and shall bear the seal of the Court", and no alternative form is prescribed for a warrant as section 63 prescribes one for a summons. For the summons the Sanhita thought about what an electronic instrument should look like and said so — the image of the seal, or a digital signature. For the warrant, which authorises an arrest, it did not. An electronically issued warrant therefore has an enabling provision and no prescribed form. Section 77 requires the officer executing a warrant of arrest to notify its substance to the person to be arrested and, if so required, to show him the warrant. What he must be holding, when the warrant was issued electronically, is not stated anywhere in the Sanhita.
The Practical Position
For a litigator the useful conclusion is narrow and it is not about section 530 at all.
Where a stage of the proceeding is covered by a specific provision, that provision and not section 530 states the terms on which the stage may be taken electronically, and the condition in it is the place where an objection has purchase. If prosecution evidence is to be recorded remotely in a warrant-case before a Magistrate, the question is the designated place under section 265(3) and whether the State Government has notified one. If a confession is to be recorded by audio-video electronic means, the question is the presence of the advocate under section 183(1). If police custody is sought, the question under section 187(4) is production in person, and the fact that the Sanhita elsewhere permits a great deal to be done on a screen does not touch it.
Where no specific provision covers the stage, section 530 is the authority, and there is at present nothing in the Sanhita to argue about except whether the thing proposed is a proceeding under the Sanhita. That is the part of the criminal process the section actually moved, and it is also the part where the absence of a standard matters least — but only because an appeal or a revision is argued on a record already made, and the accused's own presence at it decides nothing. The sentence would read very differently if clauses (i) to (iii) had been written without the sections that already govern them.
Authored by Eshan Kumar Gupta, Advocate, Hon'ble Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench.