Confidentiality of income-tax assessment records prevails over compulsory production under criminal procedure, protecting letters from disclosure.

Section 54 of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922 treated particulars in specified assessment records as confidential and barred a court from compelling a public servant to produce those records or give evidence about them, subject only to the Act's exceptions. That statutory embargo was not displaced by the fact that the documents were written by a third party, and the non obstante clause preserved the bar notwithstanding the Evidence Act. Section 94 of the Code of Criminal Procedure could not override that prohibition, so the letters remained protected from compelled production and the production order could not stand.

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Issues: Whether letters forming part of the record of an assessment proceeding could be compelled to be produced by an income-tax authority, and whether the power under section 94 of the Code of Criminal Procedure could override the prohibition in section 54 of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922.

Analysis: Section 54 treated particulars contained in the specified assessment records as confidential and barred a court from requiring a public servant to produce such records or give evidence in respect of them, subject only to the exceptions provided in the Act. The prohibition operated as an effective embargo on disclosure by the public servant and could not be cut down by the fact that the documents were written by a third party. The non obstante clause was sufficient to preserve the statutory bar notwithstanding anything in the Indian Evidence Act, and the statutory prohibition was not displaced by resort to section 94 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The earlier decision on production of material from income-tax assessment proceedings applied equally.

Conclusion: The letters were protected from compelled production, and the order directing their production could not stand.

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