New Delhi: Shoma Sen and Rona Wilson, named as accused in the Elgar Parishad case, have alleged in their petition before the Bombay high court that the prosecution violated the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, Indian Evidence Act, 1872 and Information Technology Act, 2000 in searching and seizing allegedly incriminating electronic documents from them.They urged the division Bench of Justice A.S. Gadkari and Justice Sharmila U. Deshmukh on Monday, October 17, to quash the chargesheets against them.Appearing on behalf of the petitioners, senior advocate Anand Grover said the National Investigation Agency (NIA) is relying on 10 documents that were recovered allegedly from the electronic devices of Sen and Wilson. He told the court that the electronic documents are not attachments and are unsigned, lacking probative value.He further went on to say that the electronic documents were neither written nor transmitted by Sen or Wilson and classified them as “digital hearsay”, according to The Leaflet.Grover brought to the notice of the court that Section 88A of the Indian Evidence Act prohibits the presumption of the originator of electronic evidence. He also said that the Pune Police had failed to record the hash value of the devices at the time of their seizure.A hash value is a method widely known for the authentication of an electronic record, and police need to calculate the hash value when seizing electronic devices for investigation.To buttress his argument, Grover referred to Section 3 of Information Technology (Security Procedure) Rules, 2004, which states that “an electronic record shall be deemed to be a secure electronic record for the purpose of the Act if it has been authenticated by means of a secure digital signature”.He also said the tampering of the documents cannot be ruled out given that Pune Police had sent the electronic device to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Pune to ascertain its hash value. The mere sealing of electronic records at the place of seizure does not imply the security of data as per the law, Grover asserted.As per Section 14 of the IT Act, the lawyer said the authenticity and integrity of electronic records that are not secure cannot presumed. To further his argument, he pointed to the Supreme Court’s verdict in 2014 in the Anvar P.V. versus P.K. Basheer case and added that given electronic evidence is “volatile in nature”, it can be tampered with easily without any signs or indications.He also brought to the notice of the court that FSL, Pune, had failed to answer in its report whether the electronic device seized from Wilson had been tampered with. The clone copies of the seized devices – as required under Section 207 of the Code of Criminal Procedure – have not been provided to the accused, Grover informed the court.Despite multiple requests to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) by the accused from June 2018, they have not been provided the cloned copies, and the matter is still pending before a special NIA court, Grover told the court.The arguments of Grover, on behalf of Sen and Wilson, assume significance as there are allegations of severe malpractice by investigating authorities, Medianama reported. Arsenal Consulting in 2021 claimed traces of the NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware were found on Wilson’s phone, and also said he had received phishing emails from a “threat actor” between 2013 and 2014,Similarly, SentinelOne alleged that hacking groups were used to target Wilson’s electronic devices. Even Amnesty International said last year that it had found evidence to show that Pune Police had hacked the emails of various arrested activists, including Wilson.