PRIVACY & CONFIDENTIALITY

1. Material We Receive

Where a business addresses the desk or sends particulars of a matter, we ordinarily receive:

• Particulars of the entity — its name, the jurisdiction in which it is incorporated, the person authorised to give instructions on its behalf, an address for correspondence and the Telegram handle from which the desk is addressed.
• Material relating to the matter itself — requisitions issued under Section 94 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (formerly Section 91 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973), intimations of seizure or debit freeze, first information reports, acknowledgements generated on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal, account statements, UTR references and the ledgers underlying the transactions in question.
• A record of the correspondence — the dates on which material was received, instructions taken, submissions tendered and written reports made to the client entity.

2. Purpose for Which the Material Is Used

Material received is used for the conduct of the matter in which we are instructed and for no other purpose, that is to say:

• Assessment of the notice, requisition or restraint, and identification of the authority at whose instance it operates.
• Briefing of advocates enrolled under the Advocates Act, 1961 and practising in the jurisdiction concerned.
• Preparation of representations, applications and documentary compilations to be tendered before an Investigating Officer, a competent Magistrate, an adjudicating authority or the nodal officer of a bank.
• Maintenance of the matter file, and of the record of filings, receipts and periodic reports, where a standing retainer subsists.

The material is not used to solicit instructions in any other matter, and is not disclosed to any commercial third party.

3. Retention and Security of Records

Records are transmitted over encrypted channels and held in encrypted storage, access to which is confined to the coordinator assigned to the matter and to the advocates instructed on it. On the conclusion of a matter the client entity may require the destruction of the material then held, and it will be destroyed, save to the extent that it must be retained because its preservation is required by law, because it is required for the defence of the engagement itself, or because it forms part of a record already tendered. A document once placed on the record of a proceeding cannot be recalled or destroyed at the instance of the client entity or of this desk.

4. Disclosure to Others

We do not sell, let, monetise or otherwise part with the material we receive. It is disclosed only:

• to advocates enrolled with a State Bar Council who are instructed on the matter, each of whom is bound by the obligations of confidence attaching to the profession;
• to a court, an investigating agency, an adjudicating authority or a bank, where the material is tendered on the express instructions of the client entity as part of a filing or representation; and
• where disclosure is compelled by the order of a court or by a requisition validly issued by a competent authority, in which case the client entity is informed unless we are forbidden by law to inform it.

Communications passing between a client entity and the advocates instructed on its behalf attract the protection which the law of evidence affords to professional communications. Correspondence with this desk is conducted on the same footing; the extent of that protection in any given case is, however, a question for the court seised of it, and no assurance is given as to how it may be determined.

5. Correspondence Concerning This Policy

A request for a non-disclosure agreement, an instruction to destroy material then held, or any question arising on this policy may be addressed to the desk on its Telegram channel (@PROSOLICITORS), quoting the reference of the matter. Nothing in this policy constitutes legal advice, and no engagement arises from correspondence alone.