Companies Act Section 397 — Admissibility of certain documents as evidence
CHAPTER XXIV REGISTRATION OFFICES AND FEES
Commercial / Corporate
Summary
This section overrides any other law currently in force. It states that any document which reproduces or is derived from the returns and documents a company has filed with the Registrar—whether filed on paper, in electronic form, or stored by the Registrar on any electronic data storage device or computer-readable media—will be treated as a valid document under this Act and its rules, provided it is authenticated by the Registrar or any other officer authorised by the Central Government in the prescribed manner.
Such an authenticated document will be admissible in any proceedings under this Act without needing to produce the original or provide further proof. It can be used as evidence of any contents of the original document or of any fact stated in it, as long as direct evidence of that fact would be admissible.
Official Text
Notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force, any document reproducing or derived from returns and documents filed by a company with the Registrar on paper or in electronic form or stored on any electronic data storage device or computer readable media by the Registrar, and authenticated by the Registrar or any other officer empowered by the Central Government in such manner as may be prescribed, shall be deemed to be a document for the purposes of this Act and the rules made thereunder and shall be admissible in any proceedings thereunder without further proof or production of the original as evidence of any contents of the original or of any fact stated therein of which direct evidence is admissible.