Blockchain-Based Chain of Custody Framework for Digital and Physical Evidence with Legal-Ready Evidence Verification

DOI

https://www.doi.org/10.59256/indjcst.20260502039

Published In

Volume 5, Issue 2 (2026)

Published Online

May-August 2026

Pages

355-365

Article Type

Original Article

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Chain of custody is one of the most vital aspects of any form evidence in the court of law. Even with strong evidence a case with violated chain of custody would always be inadmissible in any form of legal environment. Traditional methods of tracking evidence in India remain largely manual using physical documents or centralized, which opens them to the risks of alteration, mismanagement, or procedural lapses. Recent advancements in part of India such as Andhra Pradesh’s Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS 2.0) with QR-code-based custody tracking and Delhi Police’s usage of blockchain for forensic samples, reflects significant progress toward digitalization. However, these initiatives address either physical or forensic laboratory evidence in isolation, leaving a gap in unified frameworks for both digital and physical evidence. This dissertation proposes a design and ready to use implementation of a Blockchain-Based Chain of Custody Framework for Digital and Physical Evidence with legally acceptable evidence verification. Hyperledger fabric is the underlying structure of this model as it provides permission based blockchain model where only authorized members can access it ensuring the confidentiality, immutability, and role-based access control system. Digital evidence like logs, images, memory dumps will be stored securely using cryptographic hashing in an off- chain storage with blockchain entries protecting their integrity. Physical evidence like weapons, DNA samples, hard disks will be registered or tagged with QR codes or RFID enabling digitalised control of physical evidence and automated update of custody each time the evidence is passed among investigators, court and labs which will be impossible to tamper with. This research is not just about digitalisation of evidence and usage of blockchain which is already in underway in parts of India, it also introduces the integration of both digital forensics with physical forensics as a single ecosystem. This project also touches about a possible usage of hybrid model using Ethereum and Hyperledger together in a theoretical way which might provide transparency of public network along with the privacy of the private network.