IMPORTANT POINT
Guarantee under Art. 20(3) of Constitution of India extends to any compulsory process for production of evidentiary document which are reasonably likely to support prosecution against accused.

ORDER

Rengasamy, J. - This revision is against the order of the learned XVIII Metropolitan Magistrate Saidapet, Madras, for the production of the records ordered under Section 91 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The respondent herein is the complainant for the offences under Sections 461, 471, 474, Indian Penal Code read with Section 31 of Indian Penal Code. The first accused/first revision petitioner is employed as Personnel Manager in Hotel Chola Sheraton, Madras, whereas the second accused/second revision petitioner is the Senior Supervisor, Credit Department, in the same hotel. The respondent complainant was also working in the same hotel as Restaurant Cashier.

2. The private complaint of the respondent before the learned Magistrate is that the resignation letter dated nil was obtained from him under threat and coercion long back, by the management was pressed into service against him by these petitioners fabricating the same as a voluntary resignation letter given by the respondent herein to send him out. The respondent-complainant filed a petitioner under Section 91, Code of Criminal Procedure for production of certain documents by the persons mentioned in the list appended to the petition and the learned Magistrate has allowed for the production of these records by the persons mentioned in the list. As against this order, the accused have come forward with this revision.

3. When this matter was taken up the learned Counsel for the respondent was absent.

4. The accused-petitioners challenged the impugned order on two grounds viz., that the learned Magistrate, without applying his mind as to whether these documents arc necessary for the trial has simply ordered for the production and secondly, most of the documents in the list have to be produced by the first petitioner himself and first petitioner, who is the accused, cannot be compelled to produce the records.

5. Learned Counsel for the revision petitioner submitted that under Sec. 91, Criminal Procedure Code, only whenever, the Court was satisfied with the necessity for the records for the trial of the case, the documents could be ordered to be produced before the Court but in this case, the respondent-complainant in his petition has not even mentioned the necessity or the purpose for which the documents mentioned in his list were required for the trial and the learned Magistrate also, without even considering the purpose for which these records were required by the complainant, has ordered for production and therefore, the order is not sustainable.

6. The learned Counsel referred to certain decisions in support of his contention. In Bashir Hussain v. Gulam Mohamed1, the Bombay High Court observed as follows:

“Therefore the relevancy of a statement or a document or a thing of which the production sought would be one of the considerations which the Court wil1 have to take into account while deciding the question and the necessity or desirability of production of such statement, document or thing. Further, before ordering production of such statement, document or thing, the Court must consider whether such statement, document or thing is being suppressed or might be tampered with or destroyed by the party in whose possession it is or might be lost altogether.”

In State of Andhra Pradesh v. P. S. Ismail2, also the view expressed is that Sec. 91, Code of Criminal Procedure does not give an absolute right for the accused to ask for summoning any document and it is only when the Court, on a consideration of the facts and circumstances, considers that the production of the document or thing sought for is necessary or desirable for the purpose of the trial, enquiry or proceedings, that is summons the same but not otherwise.

7. It is true that when a document is sought for from the custody of some one, the Court cannot mechanically order for production at the very request of either side without considering the relevancy of the document because a third party cannot be so easil