This is the moment a monkey really gets down to business and takes over a lawyer’s office in northern India with the images showing it rummaging through files on a desk in front of bemused staff.

The cheeky monkey was caught on camera as it sat up at a desk and took a firm hand with the filing system at the lawyer’s office in the city of Saharanpur, in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

Video footage shows the monkey leafing through one book after another as bemused legal staff look on.

One offers it a banana, but the monkey refuses to be distracted and lets it drop to the floor.

Then one of the office workers peels it for the monkey, but it simply sweeps it out of the way of the paperwork.

Even when the man breaks off a piece and puts it right under the monkey’s nose, it still ignores it and lets it fall to the ground.

The monkey can eventually be seen being made to leave as the footage ends.

Saharanpur’s Additional District Magistrate (ADM) Deepak Kumar had said that it was not a government office.

He said: “The monkey had entered the chamber of a lawyer in the Behat tehsil area and was seated on a table.”

Kumar added that he had informed forestry officials about the incident, although it was unclear if the monkey had been caught.