NEW DELHI: ‘Popularity is not a measure of reliability’ appears to have played on the minds of the Supreme Court, which on Wednesday said messages exchanged on social media platform WhatsApp have no evidential value and that the author of such WhatsApp messages cannot be tied to them, especially in business partnerships governed by agreements.
A bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices A S Bopanna and Hrishikesh Roy said, “What is evidential value of WhatsApp messages these days? Anything can be created and deleted on social media these days. We don’t attach any value to the WhatsApp messages.”
The issue related to a December 2, 2016 Concession Agreement between South Delhi Municipal Corporation and a consortium comprising A2Z Infraservices and another entity for collection and transportation of waste materials. On April 28, 2017, A2Z entered into another agreement with Quippo Infrastructure (now Viom Infra ventures) for carrying out a part of the contracted work and it was agreed that all monies received by A2Z would be deposited in an escrow account from which payments would be made to parties.

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