The Gujarat High Court has held that a private document does not become a public document merely because its copy is obtained from a public authority under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act). The Court clarified that where the original document is private, a true copy obtained under RTI cannot automatically be treated as a certified copy of a public document or admitted in evidence without satisfying the requirements of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872.
Justice Maulik J. Shelat was dealing with a challenge to a trial court order in a partition, maintenance, declaration and permanent injunction suit, whereby three documents obtained by the plaintiffs from the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) under RTI were exhibited. The documents comprised two completion certificates issued by an architect and a family partition agreement. The defendants had objected that these were private documents and could not be exhibited merely because copies had been obtained from SMC under RTI.
The Court examined whether a private document obtained under RTI constitutes a “public document” under Section 74(2) of the Evidence Act and whether a copy obtained under RTI could be admitted as secondary evidence under Section 65(e) or (f).
Relying on the statutory scheme and precedents, the Court held that a private document merely stored or available in a public office does not automatically become a public document. What qualifies as a public document under Section 74(2) is the public record of the private document maintained by the State, and not the private document itself.
The Court specifically held that the documents in the present case were photostat copies of private documents whose records were maintained by SMC. Their true/certified copies obtained through RTI therefore did not constitute public documents merely because they were kept by SMC.
The Court further distinguished between copies of public and private documents obtained under RTI. While a document received under RTI can be treated as secondary evidence where the underlying document itself is a public document, a copy of a private document certified by the Public Information Officer remains only a true copy of a private document. Such a copy can be produced only after laying the requisite foundation for secondary evidence under Sections 65(a), (b) or (c) of the Evidence Act.
The Court accordingly rejected the proposition that RTI certification changes the legal character of a private document, holding that the RTI Act does not, by itself, transform a private document into a public document.
