6. Inspection of Books by order of Court or Judge –
(1) On the application of any party to a legal proceeding the Court or a Judge may order that such party be at liberty to inspect and take copies of any entries in a Banker’s Book for any of the purposes of such proceeding, or may order the bank to prepare and produce, within a time to be specified in the order, certified copies of all such entries, accompanied by a further certificate that no other entries are to be found in the books of the Bank relevant to the matters in issue in such proceeding, and such further certificate shall be dated and subscribed in manner herein before directed in reference to certified copies.
(2) An Order under this or the preceding Section may be made either with or without summoning the Bank and shall be served on the Bank three clear days (exclusive of Bank holidays) before the same is to be obeyed, unless the Court or Judge shall otherwise direct.
(3) The Bank may at any time before the time limited for obedience to any such order as aforesaid either offer to produce their books at the trial or give notice of their intention to show cause against such Order, and thereupon the same shall not be enforced without further order.
COMMENTS
(i) The bank has a statutory right under section 6 of the Act to object to any order directing inspection of their books though the order is made under section 91 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973; Central Bank of India v. Shamdasani, AIR 1938 Bom 33.
(ii) The words “party to a legal proceeding” would enable inspection to be made only if such inspection was necessary for the “purpose of such proceeding”. In other words, there should be a main proceeding in which the Court might come to the conclusion that such inspection was necessary and it would only in such a proceeding that order could be passed for inspection; Kattabomman Transport Corpn. Ltd v. State Bank of Travancore, AIR 1992 Ker 351.
