Guide · updated 1 September 2026

Who can sign Part B

The most contested practical question about the Section 63 certificate, and the one on which the Supreme Court has said something important without settling it.

What Part B is for

Part A is the deponent’s account: this record came from my device, which worked properly, and here is its hash. Part B is a second signature, by an expert, going to the technical particulars — among them the hash value and the algorithm, and the details of the device or record.

In Pune Bar Association v. Union of India (2026) the Supreme Court described Part B as providing an additional layer of authenticity to the secondary electronic evidence. That is its function: the deponent says where the record came from, and the expert speaks to whether the technical description of it holds up.

The Section 79A argument

Section 79A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 allows the Central Government to notify an Examiner of Electronic Evidence. Very few bodies are notified. If Part B could only be signed by such an Examiner, every litigant relying on a chat would have to queue behind that handful of institutions — which was the hardship the Pune Bar Association put before the Supreme Court, relying on a decision of the Madras High Court that had taken exactly that view.

What the Supreme Court decided

It disagreed with the Madras High Court. It held that where a court is satisfied, on unimpeachable material, that a person has special skill and expertise in computer science and cyber forensics, the opinion of that person may be treated as that of an expert.

Two qualifications matter as much as the holding:

• The question of law was expressly kept open. The Court declined to give a conclusive opinion, having not issued notice on the petition. Anyone citing this as settled law is overstating it.
• Satisfaction is the court’s. Not the expert’s, and not the party’s. It rests on material placed before the court, which means the expert’s qualifications and basis of knowledge should be stated and provable, not assumed.

What this means in practice

Do not treat the expert requirement as a formality to be filled with any available signature. Equally, do not assume a notified Examiner is the only option. The workable position is to identify someone who can genuinely speak to what Part B asserts, and to put their qualifications on the record so the court can be satisfied of them.

• State the qualification, not just the name and designation.
• Have the expert verify something real — recomputing the hash from the file, at minimum — rather than adopting a value handed to them.
• Do not describe Part B as optional in any document you file.
• Expect the point to be argued, and be ready with the basis on which your expert qualifies.

Where software stops

A program can compute the particulars Part B asks for and set them out so they are checkable. It cannot be the expert, and it cannot sign. Any product suggesting otherwise is selling something the statute does not contemplate.

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This guide explains procedure and states the law as we understand it. It is not legal advice, and Aarohan Enterprises is not a law firm. Whether a court admits a particular record, and what weight it gives it, is for that court to decide. Have an advocate settle anything you intend to file.