The Karnataka High Court, Dharwad Bench, has held that Section 14 of the Family Courts Act overrides the certificate requirement of Section 65-B of the Evidence Act, so that a Family Court may receive video recordings as evidence without a certificate, and has upheld the dismissal of a husband’s suit to declare his marriage void and a decree of restitution of conjugal rights in favour of his wife.
Dharwad: The Karnataka High Court, Dharwad Bench, has held that a Family Court may receive electronic evidence, such as video recordings of a marriage ceremony, without a certificate under Section 65-B of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, because Section 14 of the Family Courts Act, 1984 overrides the rigour of the Evidence Act on admissibility, and has dismissed a husband’s two appeals against the Family Court’s rulings [Chandrahas v. Sunita].
A Division Bench of Justice M.I. Arun and Justice Raghavendra Seetharam Srivatsa delivered the common judgment on September 21, 2026 in M.F.A. No. 101273 of 2021 c/w M.F.A. No. 101274 of 2021, after reserving it on September 9, 2026. The judgment was authored by Justice Srivatsa.
The two appeals
The husband appealed against two orders of the Principal Judge, Family Court, Dharwad. In O.S. No. 11 of 2017, he had sued for a declaration that the marriage alleged to have taken place on November 22, 2015 was null and void, and the suit was dismissed on January 19, 2020. In M.C. No. 200 of 2016, his wife had petitioned under Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 for restitution of conjugal rights, and the Family Court allowed the petition on March 19, 2021. The wife’s case was that they were engaged on November 20, 2014 and married on November 22, 2015, that she lived with him briefly in a rented house in Bengaluru in 2016, that he then left her, and that she sent a legal notice asking him to take her back. She also alleged that he demanded additional dowry. The husband denied that there was any marriage, said they were only colleagues, and said the photographs and recordings were concocted. These are the parties’ contested versions, and the Bench decided the appeals on the evidence.
What the parties argued
Advocate Shriharsh A. Neelopant, for the husband, argued that the Family Court should not have relied on the CDs containing video recordings of the marriage, as there was no certificate under Section 65-B of the Evidence Act. He relied on a Division Bench of the same Court in K.C. Sarita v. A.N. Vijaykumar and on the Kerala High Court’s decision in Pramod E.K. v. Louna V.C. He also said the CDs were produced when his counsel was absent, and that his objections to the application were not pressed.
Advocate M.M. Naikwadi, for the wife, argued that the husband had not objected when the CDs and photographs were marked, that there was nothing to show they were fabricated, and that under Section 14 of the Family Courts Act strict rules of admissibility do not apply before a Family Court.
Section 14 and Section 65-B
The Bench noted that Section 14 lets a Family Court receive as evidence any report, statement, document, information or matter that may, in its opinion, help it deal effectively with a dispute, whether or not it would otherwise be relevant or admissible under the Evidence Act. It held that the provision is intended to override the Evidence Act on relevance and admissibility, and that the rigours of Section 65-B therefore do not apply when electronic evidence is placed before a Family Court. The Family Court was justified in invoking Section 14 to reject the argument that the recordings were inadmissible.
It distinguished K.C. Sarita, since Section 14 was neither argued nor decided there, and since the primary digital video recorder had been produced in that case, so the question of secondary evidence under Section 65-B did not arise. It found that the Kerala High Court in Pramod E.K., on which the husband relied, had in fact held that Section 65-B does not apply to Family Court proceedings in view of Section 14, and it followed that view. The Bench also noted the Kerala High Court’s caution that admitting a document in evidence is not the same as proving it, and that the party relying on it must still prove it under the basic rules of evidence.
The evidence on the marriage
The Bench said the Family Court had not decided the cases on the recordings alone. There were photographs of the engagement and marriage and of the couple together, which pointed to an intimate relationship, along with the marriage invitation card. The deposition of the priest who officiated, given in the domestic violence proceedings between the same parties before the same Family Court and cross-examined on the husband’s behalf, was an important piece of evidence. The wife had also produced the husband’s original bank passbook, copies of his marks cards, an original invoice and credit card charge slip for clothes bought shortly before the marriage, and a rent agreement for the Bengaluru house, and the husband had not explained how she came to have the original documents if they never lived together.
On the husband’s objection, the Bench found that his objections to the application under which the CDs were produced did not raise the want of a Section 65-B certificate, so the objection was waived, and that in any case Section 14 made it inapplicable. It rejected the claim that he learnt of the recordings only in 2019, noting that the wife first produced the CDs on September 18, 2017 in her own petition, and that he gave his evidence in the suit on January 24, 2019.
Burden of proof
The Bench noted that both spouses hold M.Tech degrees. It said the husband seriously alleged that the recordings and photographs were fabricated but produced no credible material, and did not seek a reference to a forensic science laboratory. He also admitted that he had produced no call detail records or other document to show that he was not present at the engagement or the marriage. It accepted that a declaration of nullity involves proving a negative, but held that this does not relieve the plaintiff of the burden of laying a foundation for his case, which he had not discharged. The cumulative effect of the evidence, it held, leaned in favour of a subsisting marriage.
The order
Both appeals were dismissed. The order of March 19, 2021 in M.C. No. 200 of 2016 granting restitution of conjugal rights and the judgment of January 19, 2020 in O.S. No. 11 of 2017 dismissing the declaratory suit were upheld. There was no order as to costs.
Why it matters
The judgment settles, for this Division Bench, that a Section 65-B certificate is not a precondition for a Family Court to receive electronic evidence, and it distinguishes an earlier Division Bench decision on that ground. It also shows how the Court treats such evidence: admission under Section 14 is only the first step, and the party relying on a recording must still prove it, which here rested on the recordings together with the photographs, documents and the priest’s deposition.
The ruling deals with proceedings before Family Courts, and does not change the position in civil or criminal courts governed by the Evidence Act. The parties’ other proceedings, including those on maintenance and domestic violence, were not decided in these appeals.
Case Title: Chandrahas v. Sunita [M.F.A. No. 101273 of 2021 c/w M.F.A. No. 101274 of 2021]
Bench: Justice M.I. Arun and Justice Raghavendra Seetharam Srivatsa, Karnataka High Court, Dharwad Bench
Date of Judgment: September 21, 2026
Appearances: Advocates Shriharsh A. Neelopant and A.S. Malipatil appeared for the husband, and Advocate M.M. Naikwadi appeared for the wife.