Law: Income Tax Act, 1961

Section: 132A

Income-tax-----Search and seizure---Gold seized in police raid---Requisition by Income-tax Department for seized assets---Investigation by Department whether assets represent undisclosed income already underway---Order passed on evidence for release of goods to Department---Justified---Indian Income Tax Act, 1961, S.132A. On getting secret information the Assistant Commissioner of Police carried out a raid and seized 126 gold biscuits and currency worth Rs.14,86,500 from a certain house. Ten persons were arrested on the spot. Cases were registered by the police. As none of the arrested persons was able to produce any documents regarding the gold biscuits or the currency, those were suspected to be stolen property or involved in an offence. Requisition was made by the income-tax officials who questioned some of the accused and recorded their statements. The accused and the seized articles were produced before the Magistrate. Later, some documents showing payment of duty for 125 gold biscuits were produced before the police. Upon claim applications by the petitioners, the Magistrate ordered release of the goods to¬ them, but upon appeal by the Income-tax Department, the goods were directed to be released to the Assistant Director of Income-tax. On a revision petition: Held, dismissing the petition, that the investigation by the Income¬tax Department was already on, to assess whether the seized articles represented the undisclosed assets/income of S. All the statements, which were recorded by the Assistant Director of Income-tax and produced before the Court below showed that gold biscuits belonging to S were carried in a jeep belonging to S. The Appellate Court was justified in looking into the statements recorded in the course of investigation including the statement recorded under section 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The Appellate Court considered all the aspects and came to the conclusion that the articles should be released to the Income-tax Department. The conclusion did not call for interference. CIT v. Vindhya Metal Corporation (1997) 224 ITR 614 (SC) and Union of India v. Judicial Magistrate (Eastern Railway) (1983) 140 ITR 553 (All.) ref. JUDGMENT…

Deprecated: trim(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /home/digixyei/sldsystempk.com/view/master-layout/view_case.php on line 492