LEGAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS OF DARK WEB EXPOSURE AND YOUTH VICTIMIZATION: EVIDENTIARY CHALLENGES UNDER THE BHARATIYA SAKSHYA ADHINIYAM

Abstract

The rise of the dark web has significantly altered digital crime landscapes across the globe, including India. Responding to evolving technological realities, the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (BSA) replaces the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, with replacement updating the evidentiary norms for electronic records, digital forensics, and cyber-crime investigations. This research paper examines the legal and psychological dimensions of dark web exposure, particularly among youth aged 18years to 45years, including men, women, and transgender individuals. While the dark web enables anonymity, encrypted transactions, and unregulated content exchange, it has simultaneously facilitated illegal drug marketplaces, cyber-exploitation, data trafficking, red-room myths, terrorist propaganda, and pornography trade. Law enforcement faces critical evidentiary challenges in retrieving, authenticating, and presenting dark web–based data in Indian courts under the new act. Alongside legal complexities, prolonged or accidental exposure to dark web content induces fear conditioning, desensitisation to violence, disinhibition, anxiety, growth of deviant fantasies, addiction, and moral numbness in young adults. This paper integrates legal frameworks with behavioural science to highlight the need for psycho-legal interventions, awareness programmes, capacity-building for digital forensics, and judicial readiness for cyber-evidence. The research uses secondary sources to analyse statutes, articles, psychological reports, and case-based interpretations.