STATE OF RAJASTHAN Vs. KAILASHWATI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this revision petition the question of privilege claimed by the State of Rajasthan in respect of certain documents has been raised.

(2.) A suit was filed in the court of the Additional District Judge No. 2, Jaipur City in respect of an amount alleged to be due to a contractor for the construction of a minor irrigation project. The defendant, State of Rajasthan, in its written- statement took the stand that nothing was due to the plaintiffs and the deductions alleged to have been made were rightly made. During the course of the trial, the plaintiffs called upon the defendant State of Rajasthan to produce a number of documents, and in respect of four of the documents, which were thus sought to be produced, a claim of privilege was advanced by the defendant State of Rajasthan. Shri Vishnu Dutt, the then Secretary in the Irrigation Department, Government of Rajasthan, filed an affidavit on Jan. 10, 1970 in support of the claim of privilege by the State and he averred therein that he had read and considered the four documents in question, which were unpublished official records pertaining to the case, and relating to the affairs of the State and the production and disclosure of the said documents would hurt public interest and would be prejudicial to public interest. Out of the four documents in respect of which privilege was claimed, three were letters written by the Executive Engineer, parbati Irrigation Project, Dholpur to the Superintending Engineer, Irrigation Department, Jaipur Circle, Jaipur while the fourth one was a letter written by the Assistant Engineer of the aforesaid irrigation project to the Executive Engineer of the said project. The Additional District Judge No. 2, Jaipur City, after considering the affidavit produced by the Secretary to the State Government in the Irrigation Department and after inspecting the documents, held that the claim of privilege in respect of such documents could not be sustained. He was of the view that the Irrigation Secretary to the Government of Rajasthan did not disclose in his affidavit as to why he apprehended that the disclosure of the documents in question would lead to injure public interest. He, therefore, disallowed the claim of privilege and directed the State to produce the four documents in question in the case. Dissatisfied with the order passed by the learned Additional District Judge, this revision petition has been preferred in this Court.

(3.) When the matter came up for hearing on July 27, 1977 before this Court, learned Government Advocate appearing for the State of Rajasthan prayed for some time to get the documents, in respect of which privilege was sought, and an adjournment was allowed to the State to produce the documents for the inspection of the Court. However, even after a lapse of l years, learned Additional Government Advocate expressed his inability even today to produce the documents in question for the inspection of this Court. It need not be emphasised that it was the duty of the petitioner State of Rajasthan to produce the documents for the inspection of the court, more particularly when the time was sought for this purpose on July 27, 1977 and was allowed, but as the State has not been able to produce the documents even today, I have no alternative but to rely upon the substance of the documents, as contained in the order of the learned Additional District Judge No. 2, Jaipur City.