The main legal point established in the judgment is that Section 54 of the Indian Income Tax Act does not prohibit the admission of a document falling within its provisions under the Indian Evidence Act, and the distinction between public and private documents under the Indian Evidence Act.

Alfred Henry Lionel Leach, C.J.

1. Before proceeding to examine the provisions of the sections of the Indian Evidence Act mentioned in the question under reference it is desirable to state the effect of Section 54 of the Indian Income Tax Act, 1922, as in some cases where certified copies of the Income Tax documents have been tendered in evidence its provisions have been misunderstood and misapplied. Sub-section (1) of Section 54 of the Indian Income Tax Act states that all particulars contained in a statement made, return furnished or accounts or documents produced under the provisions of the Act, or in evidence given in the course of proceedings under the Act other than proceedings under Chapter VIII (which relates to offences and penalties) or in a record of an assessment proceeding, or a proceeding relating to the recovery of a demand shall be treated as confidential, and, notwithstanding anything contained in the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, no Court shall be entitled to require a public servant to produce a document referred to in the section or to give evidence thereon. Sub-section (2) provides for the punishment of a public servant who unlawfully discloses particulars of an Income Tax matter. Sub-section (3) sets out the occasions on which disclosure can lawfully be made. It is not necessary to set them out as the provisions of Sub-section (3) have no application here and have no bearing on the reported decisions which have relation to the application of Section 54.

2. While Section 54 prohibits the disclosure, except on specified occasions, of matters connected with an assessment to Income Tax and prohibits a Court from requiring a public servant to produce the documents mentioned in the section or to give evidence in respect of them, it does not follow that the Court may not admit in evidence a document which falls within Section 54(1). This will depend on whether the document is admissible under the provisions of the Indian Evidence Act. Paragraph 85 of the notes and instructions compiled by the Income Tax department for the guidance of its officers states that the following persons shall, in practice, be allowed to inspect or to receive copies: (1) In any case the person who actually0 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.

3. I will now turn to the relevant provisions of the Indian Evidence Act. Section 74 says that the following documents are public documents:

(1)documents forming the acts or records of the acts,-

(i) of the sovereign authority,

(ii) of official bodies and tribunals, and

(iii) of public officers, legislative, judicial and executive, whether of British India, or of any other part of His Majestys dominion or of a foreign country;

(2) public records kept in British India of private documents.

4. Section 75 stats that all other documents are private. Section 76 provides that every public officer having the custody of a public document, which any person has a right to inspect, shall give that person on demand a copy of it on payment of the legal fees therefor, together with a certificate written at the foot of the copy that it is a true copy. Section 77 says that certified copies may be produced in proof of the contents of the public documents or parts of the public documents of which they purport to be copies. Therefore, if a document is a public document, it may be proved by means of the production of a certified copy. Privat