Padam Sen v State of Uttar Pradesh

• A Munsif appointed R as a commissioner to seize the account books of the plaintiff in a suit and produce them in court. While the books were with R, the appellants offered him a bribe to be allowed to tamper with them, and they were convicted under S.165A IPC. They argued that the Munsif had no power to make the appointment, so R was not a public servant.

1. Whether a civil court has inherent power under S.151 CPC to appoint a commissioner to seize a party's account books, and whether the commissioner was a public servant.

• The inherent powers under S.151 relate to the procedure to be followed by the court in deciding the cause before it and do not extend over the substantive rights of litigants. A party has full rights over his account books, and the court has no inherent power to seize his property by force. The appointment was void, R was not a public servant (Explanation 2 to S.21 IPC applies only to a person in possession of a pre-existing office), and the appellants committed no offence under S.165A IPC.

S.151 does not confer power; it recognises the inherent power of a court, which relates to the procedure for deciding the cause before it. That power does not extend to the substantive rights of the parties, so a court has no inherent power to seize a party's property by force.