Whats App blue double tick can be used as valid proof!!
As it is said that law should be dynamic and not static, in the same way the working of the courts and legal professionals should be dynamic and the same thing was seen during the past days when, In an unusual move, Rohini Civil Court in Delhi has noted that the blue double-tick sign of a WhatsApp message can serve as valid proof that a legal notice has been viewed by the recipients of the said message. Entangled in a family dispute, a man has served notice to his daughter-in-law, her parents and her friend on WhatsApp. And once he saw ‘blue double tick’ on the chat — indicating that his message had been read — the man took a colour printout of the screenshot, and submitted it to court as proof of the notice being served. Senior Civil Judge cum Rent Controller (North) Sidharth Mathur in Rohini Court recently accepted Whatsapp blue double-tick as receipt proof of notice on the Respondents. The case concerned an Appeal filed by a Model Town resident, seeking an injunction against his son and daughter-in-law, her parents and her friend from “trespassing into the suit property”. During the hearing, the Court had asked the Appellant to send a notice to all five Respondents, and had clarified that the notices can be served via Whatsapp, considering the urgency of the situation.
Upon receiving the printouts, Senior Civil judge Sidharth Mathur stated that he had accepted it as proof that the five defendants were aware of the scheduled hearing.
“I have gone through the record. The conveyance deed… of the suit property is in the name of the plaintiff, which makes him the exclusive owner… The defendants are restrained from trespassing into the suit property without due process of law till the next date of hearing. Though defendants number one to four have been served via WhatsApp, but still I deem it appropriate that they be served once again. Accordingly, issue fresh summons to defendants number one to four on filing PF/RC returnable for 24.05.2017,” the court order said.
The Delhi High Court had recently joined ranks several Courts around the country that are experimenting with the usage of technology in judicial proceedings. In a first, the Court had ordered service of summons on one of the defendants through Whatsapp, text message and email. Last month, the High Court of Bombay had also served summons via Whatsapp, after one of the defendants in a copyright infringement case was being particularly evasive. The case concerned allegations of copyright infringement case were being particularly evasive. The case concerned allegations of copyright infringement against Producers of the Kannada movie ‘Pushpaka Vimana’ that was released earlier this year.
And through this way the court paved new and easy way to carry out legal formalities in the Indian Legal System and not only tried to reform the system but also tried to ease the system from various complex procedures and this step can be seen as a step to build a new and easy procedure that will benefit the society and as a result will lead to the upgradation of the country.