Law:

Section:

Section 137, read with section 138 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 [Corresponding to section 54 of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922] - Information respective assessment - Protection against disclosure - In a property dispute Munsif directed production of assessment record which contained statement of petitioner - Whether statement in question was made at a time when section 54 was in operation and obligation on part of income-tax authorities to treat same as confidential accrued moment statement was recorded - Held, yes - Whether since neither repeal of Act of 1922 nor enactment of Act nor indeed omission of section 137 had obliterated obligation imposed by section 54 of Act 1922, and therefore, income-tax authorities as also petitioner were justified in their stand that statement in question could not be produced in Court and Munsif was not right in insisting upon its production - Held, yes FACTS The petitioner was the ostensible owner of the property in dispute but the landlords contended that he was merely a "benamidar" and to prove that contention, they made an application before the Munsif to summon the income-tax assessment records of the petitioner to prove a statement alleged to have been made by him during the course of the proceedings for his assessment, to the effect that he was merely a "benamidar" of the property in dispute and that the real owners were the opposite parties Nos. 3 and 2. That application was resisted by the petitioner on the ground that income-tax proceedings were confidential proceedings and they could not be summoned or looked into by the court by reason of certain provision of the Income-tax Act forbidding the disclosure of any information contained in the income-tax records. The objection was overruled by the Munsif who, by his order, directed the assessment records to be summoned leaving the question of the admissibility to be decided when the records were produced in the court. The order of the Munsif was later on slightly modified by another order, under which he directed the assessment records to be brought in sealed cover and to disclose only that part of the statement of the petitioner which related to the ownership of the…

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