Section 12-20-50

Establishment or restoration of lost, etc., records of state, county or municipality.

The circuit courts of this state shall have jurisdiction of an action by the state, a county or municipality or any citizen who will give security for the costs of the proceeding to establish or restore any lost, mislaid, destroyed or mutilated records of the state, county or municipality, or of any department, agency or instrumentality thereof. Such courts shall have jurisdiction and power to prescribe all necessary rules, regulations and proceedings proper or necessary to establish or restore lost, mislaid, destroyed or mutilated records and, when so established or restored, to declare them to be the proper and legal records as the original which was so lost, mislaid, destroyed or mutilated. The proceedings shall be ex parte, and any citizen of the state who will give security for the costs of the appeal may appeal from the order, judgment or decision of the circuit court establishing or restoring or refusing to establish or restore such records to the appropriate appellate court of the state. The evidence on the hearing in the circuit court may be by depositions or affidavits, and witnesses may be examined orally and their testimony taken down by the court stenographer and transcribed and certified by him as being true and correct. On appeal to the appropriate appellate court, the transcript of the record, proceedings, and all testimony shall be certified by the circuit court; and, upon the hearing in the appropriate appellate court, such court may affirm or reverse the judgment or order of the circuit court or may enter such judgment, order or decision as the circuit court should have entered on the record and evidence so certified. The proceeding under this section shall not be deemed exclusive, but additional or supplementary to any other remedy given by common law or statute.

(Code 1923, §10139; Code 1940, T. 7, §15.)