Telegraphic message/Telegram and the law

                             Telegram service was started  in 1850 on an experimental basis between Kolkata and Diamond Harbour  by the East India Company. The  service was made available to the public in the year 1854. Telegram service which was harbinger of good and bad news was closed on 14^th July 2013. The annual income from the service was about 75 Lakh  whereas expenditure was about Rs 100 Crore to manage the service. Due to this, Government of India decided to close the service. Resulting, the service was closed on 14^th July, 2013. A lot has been written on telegram service for the last 1-2 days about its closure, but we will mention some of the facts about telegram  and law related  to telegram which are  mentioned very little and not explained :

• The telegram service was owned by BSNL (Bhartiya Sanchar Nigam Limited).
• The service was run through postal department.
• BSNL was providing training to the employees of postal department to work as Telegraph-operator.
• The duration of training was 9 months.
• The trained employees were getting one extra increment to work as Telegraph-operator.
• Postal department was charging Rs 3.50 for first ten words and after that 50 paisa per word.
• The service was replaced from postal department 5-6 years ago and was replaced by e-post which is exclusively owned postal department.
• BSNL  was booking telegrams in its own selected offices through its own employees.
• The charges for telegram were increased to Rs 27 per ten words in the year 2011.
• Due to advancement of technology and huge financial loss, services has been closed.

Telegram and its relevance to law : The telegram was registered under Indian Evidence Act and was admissible in the court of law as evidence and was helpful in proving the case. The telegrams were booked under the provisions of the telegraph act, 1885.

Presumption as to telegraphic messages : The court may presume that a message, forwarded from a telegraph office to the person to whom such message is addressed , corresponds with a message delivered  for transmission at the office from which the message purports to be sent, but the court shall not make any presumption as to the person by whom such message was delivered for transmission. This provision of presumption is under section 88 of the Indian Evidence Act.

Documents exempted from production :  As per Army Act, 1950; if any document in custody of the postal or telegraph authorities is, is in the opinion of the District Magistrate, High court or Session Court, wanted for purpose of court martial, such magistrate may require the postal or telegraph authorities, as the case may be to deliver such document to such document as such court may direct.

                    If any such document is, wanted for such purpose, any magistrate or commissioner of police or district superintendent of police may require postal or telegraph authorities to cause search to be made pending orders of any District Magistrate or High Court or Session Court.

Alternate of the telegram and new provisions of law : Telegram was booked through post offices by postal department on behalf of the BSNL earlier. The was stopped by postal department about 5-6 years ago and new service namely e-post (electronic post) was started after the computerisation of the post offices and introduction of the Internet services in the post offices. The e-post is owned by postal department. For each e-post, postal department charges Rs 10 irrespective of the words. The new act namely Information and Technology act, 2005 has been introduced by the Government of India with the advent of Internet and computers and new amendments have been made in the Indian Evidence Act :

Presumption as to electronic messages : The court may presume that an electronic message, forwarded by the originator through  an electronic mail server to the addressee to whom the message is addressed corresponds with the message as fed into computer for transmission; but the court shall not make any presumption as to the person by whom such message was sent (section 88A).

Some other important amendments in Indian Evidence Act :

• Any information contained in an electronic record which is printed on a paper , stored, recorded or copied in optical or magnetic media produced by a computer shall be deemed to be a document and be admissible in any proceeding , without  further proof or production of original as evidence(section 65B).
• The court shall presume that every electronic record for an agreement containing the digital signature of the parties was so concluded by affixing the digital signature of the parties(section 85A).
• In any proceeding involving a secure electronic record, court shall presume that record has not been altered in not proved otherwise (section 85B).
• The court shall presume, that the information in a digital signature is correct, except for information specified as subscriber information which has not been verified, if the certificate was accepted by the subscriber.