# Lok Sabha passes Bankers’ Books Evidence Bill without debate 2026-08-05T23:13:04+00:00 | India | Indian Opinion Desk The Lok Sabha passed the Bankers' Books Evidence Bill on Wednesday without any discussion, as opposition members refused the chair's calls to debate it and instead protested and shouted slogans on unrelated issues, the Times of India reported, the disruption forced an adjournment of Question Hour until 2pm, and the bill passed by voice vote before the House itself was later adjourned. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju accused the Congress, Left parties and the Samajwadi Party of being against Lord Ram, pointing to what he called a parliamentary skit by the opposition and their wearing of black bands against the Ram temple's construction, and demanded an apology, the government said the opposition was responsible for disrupting proceedings. The bill itself, moved by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, replaces the 1891-era Bankers' Books Evidence Act, letting courts treat digital and virtual bank records as admissible evidence and widening the definition of bankers' books to cover physical, digital, virtual and cloud-based records. ## Indian Opinion Analysis The bill's substance, permitting courts to accept digital and cloud-based bank records as evidence, is straightforward, but its passage without debate means none of it was tested in open discussion, and Rijiju's charges against the opposition were made amid a disrupted sitting rather than settled by any vote on the allegations themselves. What Rijiju called a skit and the opposition's own account of the same protest are not both given in Times of India's report, so his characterisation should be read as one minister's version of events. The Lok Sabha's own proceedings record for the sitting is the place to check before drawing firmer conclusions about what happened on the floor. ## Coverage - timesofindia.indiatimes.com Tags: Lok Sabha, Nirmala Sitharaman Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/lok-sabha-approves-bankers-books-evidence-bill-without-debate/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/lok-sabha-approves-bankers-books-evidence-bill-without-debate/#story-in-brief Review state: restored archive article, accurate at time of publication, not offered to search indexes.