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TMI Blog1957 (11) TMI 28X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... rstand was a security bond. Her further case is that she did not execute the mortgage bond in question knowing it to be a mortgage bond and that no consideration passed thereunder. She also stated that the husband, the father-in-law and the husband's brother of the plaintiff were members of an undivided Hindu Mitakshara family and that there was, thus, no occasion for taking any loan by the petitioner from the plaintiff. In order to establish that the aforesaid relations of the plaintiff were members of a Mitakshara joint family, the petitioner produced certified copies of certain documents of the Income-tax Department relating to the registration of the firm, return of income and balance-sheet filed by the husband of the plaintiff and assessment of taxes thereon, and made a prayer to the court that the originals of those documents should be called for from the Income-tax Department. The learned Subordinate Judge rejected the prayer of the petitioner for calling for the original of those documents and against his order the petitioner filed Civil Revision No. 944 of 1957 in this court. In view of the fact, however, that no order had been passed by the learned Subordinate J ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... shall be treated as confidential, and notwithstanding anything contained in the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (1 of 1872), no court shall, save as provided in this Act, be entitled to require any public servant to produce before it any such return, accounts, documents or record or any part of any such record, or to give evidence before it in respect thereof. Sub-section (2) of that section provides that if a public servant discloses any particulars contained in any such statement, return, accounts, documents, evidence, affidavit, deposition or record, he shall be punishable with imprisonment which may extend to six months, and shall also be liable to fine. According to this section, the documents in question are confidential documents and they cannot be required to be produced by any public servant before a court, nor could such public servant be required to give evidence before a court in respect thereof, and if any disclosure is made in this regard, the public servant is liable to punishment. The object of this section seems to be that the matters referred to in such documents should be kept strictly confidential as between the assessee and the Income-tax Department so that th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... l not be a certified copy within the meaning of the section and will, therefore, be inadmissible in evidence. On the principle underlying section 54 of the Income-tax Act making documents like those in question confidential as between the maker thereof and the Income-tax Department, it is obvious that apart from the maker thereof no one has got a right to inspect the same, and that being the position, certified copies obtained thereof on behalf of a person other than the maker thereof cannot be treated as certified copies within the meaning of the section and will not, therefore, be admissible in evidence. So far as the claim of the petitioner that she, being a partner of the shop, had a right to obtain certified copies of those documents is concerned, it is enough to say that on her own case she is not a partner of the shop in question. According to her case, her husband was a partner along with the husband of the plaintiff. Admittedly, the husbands of both the petitioner and the plaintiff are alive and, therefore, there could be no question of the petitioner being a partner and claiming a right of copy as a partner. The view taken by me gains support from various authoritie ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ntial what is meant is that the Department may not disclose such particulars save with the express consent of the assessee. Under the Income-tax Manual, an assessee is entitled to one copy of an assessment order free of charge, and apparently to further copies if he is prepared to pay for them. The object of that provision of the Manual is, apparently, to enable assessees who contemplate appealing to the Assistant Commissioner or the Commissioner of Income-tax, to prepare the relevant materials which they may desire to lay before those officers. It may be that in the case of a sole assessee there is no objection to his using the copy so obtained as evidence in legal proceedings if there are no other objections to its admissibility. It may reasonably be said that the provision that an Assessment order shall be treated as confidential is a privilege which an assessee may waive if he thinks fit to do so. However, it would be a startling thing if a joint assessee were to be permitted to use the copy of such an order to the detriment of his co-assessee in contentious proceedings between them. If a person who has been assessed to income-tax can object to the materials in the possession o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... a [1940] 8 ITR 450 , Suraj Narain v. Jhabhu Lal [1945] 13 ITR 13 , Buchibai v. Nagpur University [1947] 15 ITR 150 , Emperor v. Osman Chotani [1942] 10 ITR 420, and Somanna v. Subba Rao [1958] 33 ITR 116 for' the purpose of showing that the certified copies in question were admissible in' evidence. In the case of Queen-Empress (supra) the accused wanted to have certified copies of police reports and chargesheet. The question before the High Court was whether they were public documents and whether the accused was entitled to obtain copies thereof. There was difference of opinion between the Judges who constituted the Full Bench on the first point and I need not refer to the same as that has no relevancy to the present case. But all of them unanimously held that if the documents in question were public documents, the accused was interested in them and had, therefore, the right to inspect them and to obtain copies thereof. Thus the case does not support the contention of the petitioner that even though a person has no right to inspect but has only an interest in a document, he is entitled to have a copy thereof. In Chandi Charan v. Boistab Charan [1903] ILR 31 Cal. 284 a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the following persons shall, in practice, be allowed to inspect or to receive copies:-(1) In any case the person who actually made the return; (2) any partner (known to be such) in a firm registered or unregistered to whose income the return relates and (3) the manager of a Hindu undivided family to whose income the return relates, or any other adult member of the family who has been treated as representing it. There is nothing in section 54 to prohibit this practice and it is only right that a person who is concerned with an assessment should be allowed to obtain copies of the documents relating to his assessment to income-tax should he so desire, and if copies are supplied he may put them in evidence in a suit if the Evidence Act allows it. His Lordship further observed that section 54 does not make the issue of a certified copy of an income-tax return to an assessee unlawful, 'that the return is a confidential document and cannot be disclosed to a third party, but there can be no objection to the maker of the return having a copy for his own purposes if he so desires and that so far as the assessee is concerned he is not bound to treat the document as confidential. ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... opinion, is under a misconception. Though their Lordships have quoted that section in their judgment, they appear to have omitted to consider the effect of the words shall give that person used in that section. In Emperor v. Osman Chotani [1942] 10 ITR 429, the documents were seized by the police in a certain criminal case, and the question for decision was whether the police could be compelled to produce them in court. It was held that the production of the document could be compelled by the court. The view taken by their Lordships appears to be that the documents are confidential so long as they are in the hands of the officers of the Income-tax Department, but if they are in the hands of persons other than those officers, the documents do not continue to have the characteristic of being confidential in their hands. Be that as it may, it is not necessary to examine the correctness of that decision because that question does not arise in the present case. In Somanna v. Subba Rao [1958] 33 ITR 116 , a single Judge of that court mainly relying on the general observation of Leach, C.J., already referred to while dealing with that case held that certified copies of income-tax ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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