Govt to introduce Bill to replace 125-year-old law on presenting bank records as evidence in courts

The government is replacing a colonial-era law with one that seeks to preserve access to banking evidence while protecting banks from unnecessary legal proceedings, shifting the emphasis to better-targeted judicial oversight rather than unrestricted access to banking records.

To this end, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will introduce the Bankers’ Books Evidence Bill, 2026 in Parliament on Monday, replacing the Bankers’ Books Evidence Act, 1891, which has governed the production of banking records in courts for over 125 years.

According to the List of Business for August 3, the proposed legislation seeks to provide “for law relating to evidence with respect to bankers’ books and to align it with contemporary digital banking practices.”

The Bill comes against the backdrop of the rapid expansion of digital banking and the sharp rise in cyber-enabled financial frauds, including online scams and so-called “digital arrest” cases. It seeks to modernise the legal framework governing banking evidence to reflect the realities of electronic record-keeping and digital financial transactions.

A key feature of the proposed law is the introduction of the concept of “special cause”, under which a court may, by a written order, compel a bank officer to produce bankers’ books or appear as a witness in proceedings where the bank itself is not a party. The provision raises the threshold for summoning bank officials, ensuring they are not routinely drawn into litigation merely because they hold customer records.

The Bill defines “special cause” to include circumstances where the accuracy or authenticity of an entry in the bankers’ books is in doubt, where an event suggests that the bank’s normal record-keeping process has been disrupted, or where the bank has failed to comply with a legal order. In other words, courts will continue to have access to banking records in genuine cases, but only after recording specific reasons for doing so.

The legislation also significantly expands the definition of “bankers’ books” to include records maintained in physical, electronic, digital, virtual, cloud-based or any other form, creating a technology-neutral legal framework that can accommodate future advances in banking.

To facilitate the use of electronic evidence, the Bill provides for standardised certification formats, permits authentication through manual, digital or electronic signatures, and expressly recognises the admissibility of electronic banking records. Such records may be produced before courts in either physical or electronic form.

Another enabling provision empowers the Central Government to extend the applicability of the legislation to other entities or classes of entities operating in the financial sector, subject to prescribed conditions. This gives the law flexibility to cover new categories of regulated financial institutions as the sector evolves.

The existing Act was enacted in 1891 to allow certified copies of bank records to be admitted as evidence without requiring production of original ledgers. While the legislation served the banking system for more than a century, it was drafted at a time when records were maintained almost entirely on paper.

“With the advancement of technology and growth of digital banking, bank records are increasingly created, stored and maintained using contemporary technology. It has, therefore, become necessary to modernise and strengthen the existing legal framework to meet the requirements of the present banking system,” the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Bill says.

The proposed legislation thus seeks to balance two objectives: preserving investigators’ and courts’ access to banking evidence in legitimate cases while reducing unnecessary legal burdens on banks and creating a legal framework suited to India’s digital financial ecosystem.