Section 36
Discovery
of Government Proceedings Act 1956
(1)
Subject to and in accordance with rules of court—
(a)
in any civil proceedings in the High Court or a subordinate
Court to which the Government is a party, the Government may be required by the court to make discovery of documents and produce documents for inspection; and
(b)
in any such proceedings as aforesaid, the Government may be required by the court to answer interrogatories:
Provided that this section shall be without prejudice to any other written law, or to any rule of law which authorizes or requires the withholding of any document or the refusal to answer any question on the ground that the disclosure of the document or the answering of the question would be injurious to the public interest.
(2)
Any order of the court made under the powers conferred by paragraph (1)(b) shall direct by what officer of the Government the interrogatories are to be answered.
Government Proceedings 29
(3)
Without prejudice to the proviso to the preceding subsection (1), any rules made for the purposes of this section shall be such as to secure that the existence of a document will not be disclosed if, in the opinion of the persons hereinafter mentioned, it would be injurious to the public interest to disclose the existence thereof. Such persons are—
(a)
in respect of the Federal Government, a Minister;
(b)
in respect of the Government of a State, the Chief Minister of such State:
Provided that it shall not be deemed injurious to the public interest to disclose the existence of any document by reason only of the fact that such disclosure would or might lead or tend to the success of the opposite party in the proceedings.