Privileged revenue information and informant identity protection under the Evidence Act in customs-related disclosure disputes

Communications made to revenue officers by private persons to enable action against offences affecting public revenue may be treated as official confidence, but Section 124 does not create automatic immunity for all such recorded information. Any privilege claim must be assessed in light of public interest and, in a criminal trial, raised before the trial court when properly invoked. By contrast, an order granting a reward to the informant was treated as protected because its disclosure would reveal the informant's identity and source of information, bringing it within Section 125. The impugned notice was therefore upheld for the recorded information but set aside in relation to the reward order.

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Issues: (i) Whether recorded information received by Customs officials regarding commission of an offence against public revenue is protected from disclosure under Section 124 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. (ii) Whether the order granting reward to the informant is protected from disclosure under Section 125 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872.

Issue (i): Whether recorded information received by Customs officials regarding commission of an offence against public revenue is protected from disclosure under Section 124 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872.

Analysis: Communications made to revenue officers by private persons in the course of enabling action against offences affecting public revenue may be communications made in official confidence. The privilege under Section 124 is not an automatic class immunity for all such information, and the claim must be considered in the context of public interest and the nature of the proceeding. In a criminal trial, disclosure questions are to be examined by the trial court when privilege is properly claimed.

Conclusion: The recorded information was not quashed outright and the petitioner was left to claim privilege before the trial court.

Issue (ii): Whether the order granting reward to the informant is protected from disclosure under Section 125 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872.

Analysis: Disclosure of the reward order would necessarily reveal the identity and source of the informant. Section 125 protects a revenue officer from being compelled to disclose whence information about an offence against public revenue was received. The Court treated the reward order as inseparable from disclosure of the informant's identity and therefore within the statutory protection.

Conclusion: The notice was quashed to the extent it required production of the reward order.

Final Conclusion: The impugned notice survived in relation to the recorded information, but was set aside in relation to the reward order, resulting in partial relief to the petitioner and preservation of the trial court's power to decide any privilege claim on the recorded information according to law.

Ratio Decidendi: A reward order that would disclose the identity or source of an informant to a revenue officer is protected from compelled production under Section 125, while claims of privilege over recorded information under Section 124 must be determined in the context of public interest and by the trial court when properly raised.

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