§ 13 — Original Papers On File As Evidence

Whenever the officer, as the Secretary of the Interior may designate, of any United States land office shall be served with a subpoena duces tecum or other valid legal process requiring him to produce, in any United States court or in any court of record of any State, the original application for entry of public lands or the final proof of residence and cultivation or any other original papers on file in the Bureau of Land Management of the United States on which a patent to land has been issued or which furnish the basis for such patent, it shall be the duty of such officer to at once notify the Secretary of the Interior, or such officer as he may designate, of the service of such process, specifying the particular papers he is required to produce, and upon receipt of such notice from any such officer of a United States land office the Secretary or such officer designated by him shall at once transmit to the officer of such land office the original papers specified in such notice, and which such officer is required to produce, and to attach to such papers a certificate, under seal of his office, properly authenticating them as the original papers upon which patent was issued; and such papers so authenticated shall be received in evidence in all courts of the United States and in the several State courts of the States of the Union: Provided, That the Secretary of the Interior shall make rules and regulations to secure the return of such documents to the Bureau of Land Management, after use in evidence, without cost to the United States.