Law:

Section:

Section 138 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 - Information respecting assessee, disclosure of - Whether, although section 138 does not prohibit income-tax authorities from producing assessee's documents before civil court when directed by civil court to do so, yet it is open to Commissioner to claim privilege in respect of a document summoned by Court and it is open for Court to decide whether privilege can be granted or refused - Held, yes - Whether before summoning documents Court should satisfy itself that documents are required for purpose of determining issue raised in suit - Held, yes FACTS During pendency of a partition suit filed by the O.P. No. 1 on plaintiff, the petitioner-defendant No. 1 filed a petition under Order XIII, rule 10 of the Code taking a plea that the respondent could not seek partition of the suit properties through the said suit as the same were already partitioned in terms of the decree passed by the Court in 1955 and the same were reflected in the income-tax returns as also the statements filed by the respondent-plaintiff No. 1 and his father before the income-tax authori-ties. As the plaintiff had denied the earlier partition, defendant No. 1, in order to prove the same, prayed to call for the income-tax returns as well as the statements filed by the plaintiff before the income-tax authority, being material documents, since the application for certified copies of the aforesaid documents had been rejected. The trial court, however, rejected the prayer of the petitioner in view of the bar of section 123 of the Evidence Act, holding that the Court was not competent to call for the documents from the Income-tax Officer in view of the restrictions contained in the Income-tax Act as well as sections 123 and 124 of the Evidence Act. On revision application : HELD From the provision of section 138(1)(b ) it is clear that it only enables the Commissioner to give copies of certain documents provided the grant of such copies is in public interest. It does not apply where a party wants the documents for private purpose. It does not prohibit the income-tax authorities from producing the assessee's documents before the civil court when directed by…

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