Case Law Details
Director General of Income Tax Vs Deputy Commissioner of Police (Karnataka High Court)
Conclusion: In present facts of the case, the Hon’ble High Court quashed the FIR registered against Income Tax officials as Section 293 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 mandates that no suit shall be brought in any civil Court to set aside or modify any proceeding taken or order made under the Act and no prosecution, suit or other proceeding shall lie against the Government or any officer of the Government for any act done in good faith under the Act.
Facts: On 15.03.2016, search and seizure proceedings were initiated by the petitioners in terms of Section 132 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 on the residential premises of the complainant and several incriminating documents including a diary that was found during the search were seized. The diary was found in the bedroom of the complainant. According to the petitioners, the diary had recordings of various transactions with abbreviations and amounts against each of the abbreviations.
The complainant on 28.02.2017, registers a complaint before the 3rd respondent/Station House Officer, Indiranagar Police Station, Bangalore, alleging that there was gross violation of the procedure adopted in the search and certain documents that were seized and particularly, the diary that belongs to the complainant. In all, the complainant alleges that offences punishable under Sections 218, 193, 199, 182, 341, 406, 409, 457, 380, 466, 471, 472, 166-A read with Sections 34, 109 and 120-B of the IPC. The complaint resulted in registration of a FIR for the aforesaid offences on 28-02-2017, in Crime No.52 of Even at this point in time, the petitioners did not knock the doors of this Court as the FIR registered was against unknown persons. What triggered filing of the petition before this Court is a Police Notice dated 13.04.2017, issued by the 3rd respondent directing the 1st petitioner to hand over the diary that was seized during the raid conducted on the residence of the complainant. It is then, the petitioners could come to know that a FIR had been registered against them. This was replied by the petitioners on 20.04.2017, contending that the FIR could not have been registered against them as they were performing official duty in terms of Section 132 of the Act and protection under Section 293 of the Act was available to the petitioners.
The Hon’ble High Court after taking into consideration Sections 132 and 138(2) of the Act, observed that once such seizure proceedings are undertaken by the officials of the Department under authorisation, they are not obliged to furnish any document to any public servant in respect of such matters relating to the assessee against whom search and seizure is taken up. Further, it was observed that Section 293 of the Act mandates a bar of institution of suits in civil Courts. The petitioners were empowered to conduct search and seizure of the said documents under Section 132(4) of the Act. Section 132(4A) also deals with, where any books of accounts, other documents, money, bullion, jewellery or other valuable articles are found in the possession or control of any person in the course of search it is presumed that they belong to the assessee. Therefore, those incriminating documents including the diary were seized by the respondents during search. Section 138 of the Act, deals with disclosure of information in respect of assesses.
Please become a Premium member. If you are already a Premium member, login here to access the full content.
Author Bio
