There might be all sorts of reasons - if you're being busted for fraud or tax evasion and all of your hard drives are mysteriously blank, or there are empty filing cabinets and a big pile of ash then I would imagine that would go down fairly badly in court.
The modern equivalent is a whole bunch of destroyed media - thumb drives, flash cards or hard drives.
Of course, IANAL, but that's how I'd do it if I ruled the world...