(1) Every inquiring authority shall have the same powers as are vested in a civil court under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, while trying a suit, in respect of the following matters, namely :—
(a) the summoning and enforcing the attendance of any witness and examining him on oath ;
(b) requiring the discovery and production of any document or other material which is producible as evidence ;
(c) subject to any claim of privilege (in respect of which sections 123 and 124 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 shall mutatis mutandis apply but section 162 thereof shall not apply), the requisitioning of any public record from any court or office.
(2) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1), the authorized inquiring authority shall not compel the Reserve Bank of India, the State Bank of India, any subsidiary bank as defined in clause (k) of section 2 of the State bank of India (Subsidiary Banks) Act, 1959, or any corresponding new Bank constituted under section 3 of the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of undertakings) Act, 1970 :—
(a) to produce any books of account or other documents which the Reserve Bank of India, the State Bank of India, the subsidiary bank or the corresponding new bank claims to be of a confidential nature, or
(b) to make any such books or documents a part of the record of the proceedings of the departmental inquiry, or
(c) to give inspection of any such books or documents, if produced to any party before it or to any other person.
(3) Any process issued by an inquiring authority for the attendance of any witness or for the production of any document may be served and executed either direct (by post or by messenger) or through the District Judge within the local limits of whose jurisdiction the witness or other person on whom the process is to be served or executed, voluntarily resides or carries on business or personally works for gain.
(4) Where a process is served and executed through the District Judge in accordance with sub-section (3), it shall, for the purposes of taking any action for the disobedience thereof, be deemed to be a process issued by the Court of the District Judge.
(5) Where a process is issued by a tribunal constituted under the Uttar Pradesh Disciplinary Proceedings (Administrative Tribunal) Rules, 1947, and is served and executed without its being routed through the District Judge, the tribunal shall, for the purposes of taking any action for the disobedience of any such process, have the same powers as are vested in a civil court under rules 10 to 18 of order 16 in the First Schedule to the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908. (6) Every inquiring authority making any departmental inquiry under this Act shall be deemed to be a civil court for the purposes of sections 345 and 346 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.