Law:

Section:

Section 277 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 - Offence and Prosecution - Wilful attempt to evade tax, etc. - Complaint was filed by ITO - Trial Court without applying its mind exempted personal appearance of ITO and summoned accused - Whether order of trial court was bad in law and was liable to be quashed - Held, yes FACTS The accused petitioners were being prosecuted for offences under sections 276 and 277. The ITO filed application for exemption from personal appearance. The trial court exempted the personal appearance of the ITO and passed order summoning the accused. On writ, the accused-petitioners sought quashment of the proceedings against them as well as the orders of the trial court summoning the petitioners to face trial for the said offences, inter alia, on the ground that the trial court had failed to apply its mind to the facts and circumstances of the case while summoning the accused-petitioners in all these cases. HELD It was too early to go into the merits of the quashment of the complaint because the order summoning the accused-petitioners did not reveal that the trial court had applied its mind to the facts and circumstances of the case. The High Court cannot substitute itself for the trial court in order to appraise those circumstances, especially when the trial court is bound to go into all the facts and circumstances of the case while passing the appropriate order. The trial court had simply gone through the application praying for exemption of personal appearance of the Complaint and came to the conclusion that since the complaint had been filed by the ITO in his officer capacity and the complainant had to attend to duties as ITO, the personal appearance of the complainant was dispensed with till further orders, rather applying its mind to the facts and circumstances of the case embodied in the complaint. Thus, there was no option but to quash the order summoning the accused to face trial for the offence in all these petitions. The trial court would, however, pass a fresh order in accordance with law after due application of mind. Note : The case was decided in favour of the petitioners. CASE REFERRED TO Pran Nath v. Chief Magistrate [1991]…

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