Uco Bank and Another vs Sukhwant Singh

I.S. Tiwana, J.—This order disposes of four connected revision petitions Nos. 1491 to 1494 of 1990 as these are directed against different

but similar orders passed by the trial. Court.

Vide these orders, the claim of the Plaintiff-Petitioner Bank u/s 124 of the Indian Evidence Act claiming privilege from production of certain

documents summoned from it at the instance of the Defendant has been declined. For recording this conclusion the Court found : firstly, the person

who had made prayer; for claiming privilege was not a public officer; secondly the claim had been made by the Bank and not by the officer from

whom the document had been summoned and thirdly, the disclosure or production of the summoned documents was not likely to injure any public

interest.

Having perused the orders in the light of the grounds taken in these petitions, I find that the above noted conclusions are well founded. A bare

reading of Section 124 of the Indian Evidence Act, indicates that privilege can be claimed with regard to documents or communications where (i)

the communication has been made to a public officer in official confidence; and (ii) the officer concerned must feel or be satisfied, that public

interest would suffer if the disclosures of the communication in question is made. The trial Court has rightly recorded that the Divisional Manager of

the Bank from whom the documents had been summoned was neither a public officer nor had the privilege been claimed by him in his official

capacity. On the contrary, it was the Plaintiff-Bank, who claimed the protection of Section 124 of the Indian Evidence Act. Further it is difficult to

comprehend as to how and why the records from an enquiry filed conducted against the Bank official if disclosed would injure or affect public

interest. In this regard, a reference can be made to S.P. Gupta Vs. President of India and Others, , in support of this conclusion of mine. In that

case, even the correspondence exchanged between the Law Minister, Government of India. Chief Justice of the High Court, the State Government

and the Chief Justice of India and other relevant notings in the files were declined the privilege u/s 124 of the Indian Evidence Act. Therefore, I find

no merit in these petitions and the same are dismissed with no order as to costs.