Prashant Chandra Vs Harish Gidwani Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax Range 2 (Allahabad High Court)
Allahabad High Court held Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax guilty under section 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 and imposed fine of Rs. 25,000 along with simple imprisonment for a period of one week.
Facts- The present contempt application u/s. 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 has been filed alleging willful and deliberate disobedience of judgment and order dated 31.03.2015 passed by a Division Bench of this Court whereby the following direction was issued:
A perusal of Annexure SA-3 annexed with the supplementary affidavit dated 31.3.2015 shows that in response to the notice dated 3.11.2014, the petitioner preferred written objection to the Assessing Officer bringing to his notice the pendency of the aforesaid writ petition and also apprising him that Section 127 was not even remotely attracted. Therefore, it was incumbent upon the opposite party No.2 to have waited for the outcome of the writ petition, but he proceeded with the matter which shows prejudicial and impartial attitude of the authority. It may be noted that transparency and fairness is the essence of the state action. Therefore, the authorities are expected to proceed in disciplined manner without creating any doubt in the mind of the asseessees. As averred above, it was the duty of the Assessing Officer to have referred the question of jurisdiction to the Chief Commissioner or the Commissioner as the case may be under sub-section (2) of Section 124 of the Act and not doing so, this vitiated the further proceedings.
