Para 9 — Record Mgmt
Original Rule Text
# 9. Penalty for contraventions. -
Whoever contravenes any of the provisions of section 4 or section 8 shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to five years or with fine which may extend to ten thousand rupees or with both.
- Section 9 of Public Record Rules, 1997
9. Destruction of Public Records.-
(1) No public record shall be destroyed without being recorded and revised. ln the month of January every year, each records creating agency shall record after consulting the records retention Schedule all those files on which action has been completed. This work shall be accomplished in consultation h the Records Officer
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(2) No public record which is more than twenty-five years old shall be destroyed by any records creating agency unless it is appraised.
(3) A list of all such public records which are proposed to be destroyed shall be prepared by the record creating agency in Form 6 and retained permanently for future reference.
(4) The Record Officer shall furnish a half yearly report in Form 7 on recording, indexing, T4l20lreviewing and weeding of records to the Director General or Head of the Archives, as the case may be.
(5) Records shall be destroyed either by burning or shredding in the presence of Record Officer.
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What This Means
Section 9 of the Public Records Act, 1993 provides the penalty for contravening the destruction and disposal provisions. Any person who violates Section 4 (which requires public records to be maintained and not taken away without permission) or Section 8 (which restricts unauthorized disposal) commits an offence. The punishment is imprisonment for a term that may extend to five years, or a fine that may extend to Rs 10,000, or both.
This provision is particularly relevant in the modern digital office environment, where e-files can be deleted with a single click. The fact that the same penalty applies to electronic records (as clarified in Para 5) makes it important for all government officers — not just Record Officers — to understand that casual deletion of government e-files is potentially a criminal offence under the Public Records Act.
This explanation was generated with AI assistance for educational purposes. Always refer to the official gazette notification for authoritative text.
Key Points
- 1Penalty for violating Sections 4 or 8 of the Public Records Act: imprisonment up to 5 years, fine up to Rs 10,000, or both.
- 2Both taking public records away without permission (Section 4) and unauthorized destruction (Section 8) attract this penalty.
- 3The penalty applies to e-files just as much as physical files.
- 4This is a criminal penalty — not merely an administrative action or departmental penalty.
- 5Any person (not just Record Officers) can be prosecuted for unauthorized disposal of public records.
Practical Example
A retiring Secretary takes home several files relating to decisions made during his tenure, intending to use them for writing his memoirs. This act violates Section 4 of the Public Records Act (public records cannot be removed without permission). If prosecuted, he could face imprisonment up to 5 years. Similarly, an IT administrator who permanently deletes a batch of e-files from the server without following the formal review and disposal procedure under the Act could be prosecuted under Section 9.
This explanation was generated with AI assistance for educational purposes. Always refer to the official gazette notification for authoritative text.
Frequently Asked Questions
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This explanation was generated with AI assistance for educational purposes. Always refer to the official gazette notification for authoritative text.