Now Reading: Lok Sabha Bill Allows Police Access to Complete Bank Histories
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Lok Sabha Bill Allows Police Access to Complete Bank Histories
The Lok Sabha passed the Banker's Books Evidence Bill, 2026, by voice vote on August 5, replacing the 1891 law with rules covering electronic, digital and cloud-based bank records. LiveLaw reports that…
The Story in Brief
The Lok Sabha passed the Banker's Books Evidence Bill, 2026, by voice vote on August 5, replacing the 1891 law with rules covering electronic, digital and cloud-based bank records. LiveLaw reports that the Bill also allows police officers of superintendent rank or above to requisition a citizen's complete banking history without prior judicial authorisation. Banks must notify customers, but exceptions cover ongoing investigations, national security and organised financial crime.
The Bill provides separate certification formats for physical and electronic records. LiveLaw argues that the privacy concern is not digitisation but unsupervised access. It cites the Supreme Court's K.S. Puttaswamy judgment, which requires privacy restrictions to meet tests of necessity, proportionality and procedural safeguards. The Bill now goes to the Rajya Sabha.
The Indian Opinion
The lazy narrative is that modernising an outdated evidence law must automatically be good, while the opposing exaggeration is that every digital record power is unconstitutional. The real issue is narrower: who checks a police demand for a person's entire financial history, and when is the person told? Financial crime investigations need access, but a seniority threshold alone may not provide independent oversight. The Rajya Sabha should test whether judicial approval, review or mandatory audits are needed, and publish safeguards that can be measured in practice.
Source: livelaw.in
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
