Admissibility of cyber evidence presented through

illegal means?

In the Court of Justice, evidence plays an integral role in proceedings as well as the
judgement. Evidence is extracted in two ways mainly-legal means and illegal means. For a
fair and healthy trial, it is essential to use legally extracted evidence, however sometimes the
illegally extracted evidence may act as a turning point in the case which may turn the path for
future proceedings. However, the admissibility of these evidences depends upon the
discretion of the judge and how much he/she allows to be taken into consideration. When
considering whether to allow illegally obtained evidence, the court will balance the need to
deter/discourage law breaking against the desire to have all material facts before the court.
Digital evidence or electronic evidence is any probative information stored or transmitted in
digital form that a party to a court case may use at trial. ... As such, some courts have
sometimes treated digital evidence differently for purposes of authentication, hearsay, the
best evidence rule, and privilege. As with any evidence, the proponent of digital evidence
must lay the proper foundation. Courts largely concerned themselves with the reliability of
such digital evidence. As such, early court decisions required that authentication called "for a
more comprehensive foundation

It has been sincerely known that the court never ever accepts illegal evidence or evidence
extracted illegally . Court needs to know that the evidence is reliable, reasonable and then
only accepts it. But in the recent times there has been a change in how court proceedings take
place. Since the past decade court has started to accept evidence extracted illegally unlike it
used to before. It mostly happens in cases involving cybercrimes , where it is hard to present
much evidence , so the defendant is forced to present illegally extracted evidence in order to
help his/her case. It is up to the judge whether to accept the evidence or not. There is no set
standard as to the acceptance of evidence as this acceptance of illegal acceptance has only
been started taking place in the recent years and totally depends on the discretion of the judge
as it acts against the constitutional right to privacy. It all depends on the relevancy of the
evidence presented i.e. if a judge finds that the evidence although being illegal is relevant for
the case and might act as a turning point then he might. allow the evidence. So the appellant
should way out the pros and cons before presenting the illegal evidence. It may also affect the
solicitor’s position so it should be thought about first.
Like in the case of West Bengal adjudication verdict  husband was fined for violating the
privacy of his wife when he extracted evidence supportive of his matrimonial dispute case by
means which were held violative of the privacy of his wife.
So it can be concluded that illegal evidence may be admissible in court of law but only to the
discretion of the honourable judge.