Section 96(n) in Police Regulations, Calcutta, 1968
(n)General search followed by detailed inspection. - When a Magistrate proceeds under paragraphs 3 and 4 of sub-section (1) of section 96 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 (Act V of 1898), and directs in his warrant that there should be a general search followed by a more careful inspection at the police station or some other convenient place, papers and documents and other articles need not be examined and initiated piece by piece in site. They shall be collected and packed in bundles, boxes or other receptacles which shall be closed or locked, as the case may be, and shall in all cases be sealed or marked by the search witnesses and entered in the search lists. For instance, the contents of a desk, drawer shall be collected, packed together and the bundle, box or other receptacle, shall be marked and initiated by the search witnesses. Subsequently these bundles, boxes or other receptacles shall be very formally opened in the presence of a Deputy Commissioner by the search witnesses who sealed or marked and signed them during the search, and their contents shall be gone over piece by piece, examined, kept or rejected, but shall be in every instance initialled and dated by the search witnesses and the police officer in question. Each of these pieces must bear the initial letters and the serial of its original bundle plus its own serial number in that bundle. Should any difficulty be experienced in getting a search witness to examine the documents at the police station, it shall be open to any police officer to call in the assistance of the Court to compel the attendance of such search witnesses at the Court to open the bundles, boxes, etc. should a witness refuse to sign the constants of the bundles, the police officer shall, if possible, invoke the help of an Honorary Magistrate or such other officers as may be available.
