Chain of Custody: What Breaks It, and What Indian Courts Have Said

Account for relevant custody events and secure storage, including authorised access, opening, subsampling and resealing. Continuous storage does not require a new transfer entry every minute.

Records may include collection, transfer, intake, access, examination and return entries. Their names and number vary; five named forms are not a universal minimum.

Review unexplained gaps, seal changes, undocumented access and quantity differences. Distinguish missing information from demonstrated substitution or contamination.

• Unexplained time or access gaps.
• Unexplained seal or package differences.
• Missing or contradictory transfer acknowledgements.
• Quantity changes not explained by packaging, sampling, drying or measurement.

Cross-check the sources of a discrepancy before deciding what it means.

• Compare collection, transport and storage records.
• Check the basis of reported times and quantities.
• Retain originals or controlled electronic records and a traceable correction history.

Custody history explains exhibit handling. A chain of circumstances concerns how several facts support a legal inference. The concepts interact but are not interchangeable.

Investigating a Seal Discrepancy

A seal mismatch prompts a documented intake review. Establish who sealed, transported, opened or resealed the item and whether contemporaneous records explain the difference.

Assess effects on identity, integrity and the proposed examination. An unexplained discrepancy is not itself a universal legal outcome.

Keeping Legal Propositions within Their Scope

A decision concerning missing CCTV or circumstantial reasoning does not automatically establish a rule about laboratory seals. Read the actual facts and holding before applying an authority to a particular transfer.

US federal and state evidential rules differ; UK requirements depend on the legal system. India, Canada, Australia and other jurisdictions have their own rules. Scientific assessment still needs a supported account of material identity and relevant handling.

A useful transfer procedure records who transferred what, when, where, why and in what condition. Local seal types, forms and required signatures differ.

Standard elements of the protocol:

• Identify the exhibit and packaging uniquely.
• Inspect and record seal and package condition.
• Record the responsible parties, purpose and relevant times.
• Link authorised opening and resealing to the earlier seal history.
• Document exceptions; do not invent universal 24-hour or 30-minute tolerances.

This protocol sits on top of, not in place of, the documentation work covered in Securing and Documenting the Crime Scene and the packaging work covered in Processing Physical Evidence. The chain is the meta-record that ties them together.

India’s BNSS provisions concern specified forensic attendance and recording duties; they do not redefine all earlier provenance.

• Section 176(3) includes an offence category and State Government notification condition.
• Section 105 addresses recording within its statutory scope.
• Neither provision means custody begins only when the expert arrives.

Video can supplement transfer and package records. It does not replace them or automatically resolve a contradiction.