9911796707
TMI Blog1995 (2) TMI 358X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... filed by Smt. Kamal Preet Sodhi, wife of Shri Thanesar Singh Sodhi, and Smt. Gurdeep Kaur, wife of Shri Jagat Singh, father of Shri Thanesar Singh Sodhi is dated October 27, 1978. It is stated in this order that an undertaking has been given on behalf of the Union of India that the Collector, Central Excise and Customs, Delhi, undertakes to file a complaint for prosecution of the detenus Shri Thanesar Singh and Shri Jagat Singh within a fortnight and upon filing of such a complaint the detention orders will be revoked forthwith. It is further stated that in view of this undertaking both these writ petitions are dismissed as withdrawn. The appellant's advocate, Shri Harjinder Singh has claimed that the revocation order passed by the Under Secretary (Home) should be treated as having been passed under instructions of the Supreme Court as otherwise the Supreme Court would have set aside the detention order. It is, therefore, claimed that the detention order passed earlier should be deemed to have been quashed by the Supreme Court and, hence, the Competent Authority should not have proceeded to pass the order dated September 16, 1983, under section 7 of the SAFEMA. Shri Harjinder Sin ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... dhi claimed that he came to Delhi in 1960 when he was 11 years old. He further stated that he came to Delhi looking for work and his mother, brothers and sisters joined him after two or three months. They were all staying in Delhi in a rented house for which the rent per month was Rs. 20. Shri Thanesar Singh Sodhi claimed that he was working as an electrician on his own and he was not employed by anyone. Shri Thanesar Singh stated that he got married in 1967, but his elder sister Maninder Bedi was married in 1966. The next sister, Kuldeep Kaur, was married in 1971-72 and the third sister was married in 1977. The fourth sister was married in 1979. The younger brother was married in 1975. Shri Thanesar Singh Sodhi claimed that his maternal grandfather Sardar J. Ram Singh used to sometimes help the family. Sardar J. Ram Singh was a "Sikh Sevki" (religious Guru) and he used to maintain himself from the offerings made by people. Shri Boor Singh who was the maternal uncle of Shri Thanesar Singh and the son of Shri J. Ram Singh had also filed an affidavit before the income-tax authorities which had been sworn on August 20, 1971. This affidavit was filed by Shri Thanesar Singh before the I ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... out the gift of Rs. 10,000 made by his father to Shri Thanesar Singh because his father had asked him that Shri Thanesar Singh wanted Rs. 10,000 for the purchase of some plot. The claim of the appellant Shri Thanesar Singh that he had received Rs. 10,000 from Shri J. Ram Singh in the presence of Shri Boor Singh is not borne out from the statement of Shri Boor Singh. The Income-tax Officer has also taken note of the fact that Shri Boor Singh claimed that he has never received any money from his father as he used to live away from his father since childhood. Shri Boor Singh had also claimed that from 1968 onwards he went out of Amritsar to Patiala side for three-four years, but prior to 1967, he had been staying in Amritsar in the same house as his father which was contradictory to his earlier claim. Shri Boor Singh had stated that his father had never purchased any property apart from the house in which he was living and which had been purchased about 18, 20 years ago. Shri Boor Singh stated that his father had not made any addition to the already constructed house and also did not purchase any other property. Shri Boor Singh claimed that his father was able to save about Rs. 100 ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... r Singh for the assessment year 1966-67 and the first appeal against this order had also been dismissed by the Appellate Assistant Commissioner of Income-tax. Hence as far as the assessment order under section 143(3) is concerned for the assessment year 1966-67, it has become final since long and no further appeal is pending against it. Therefore, the claim of the assessee that "the appeal relating to the assessment year 1966-67 is pending before the Appellate Tribunal under income-tax, the matter is sub judice" is deliberately misleading and false. It would be relevant to note that no fresh affidavit of Shri Boor Singh was ever filed before the Competent Authority. He had only been given copies of the affidavit sworn by Shri Boor Singh in 1971 and 1973 which had since been rebutted by the Income-tax Officer as discussed at length in the assessment order for 1966-67. There was no fresh claim of any kind made by Shri Boor Singh in the form of any fresh affidavit. The person who had made the alleged gift had already expired in 1967. All the claims made by Shri Boor Singh had been rebutted properly by the Income-tax Officer and had been confirmed in appeal by higher authorities. The ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... on record from 1962 onwards. Therefore, the claim that in 1966, he was given Rs. 10,000 by his grandfather who did not help his own son, Shri Boor Singh (who made a living out of buying old gunny bags, unstitching them and reselling the jute cloth to shopkeepers) but gave Rs. 10,000 to Thanesar Singh, not for meeting any urgent need of money but for investment in property is difficult to accept as correct. There was absolutely no reason for the Competent Authority to come to any different conclusion than the conclusion arrived at by the Income-tax Officer making the assessment for the assessment year 1966-67 who had been provided with all the evidence which Thanesar Singh wanted to give in support of his claim that the investment in the purchase of plot in Punjabi Bagh was not from his undisclosed sources of income. The Competent Authority was justified in holding that this investment made by Shri Thanesar Singh had obviously come from the income derived from Shri Thanesar Singh from smuggling and other related illegal activities. Therefore, the finding of the Competent Authority on this point is upheld. The next chronological investment claimed to have been made by Shri Thanesar ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... arned from illegal activities. Similarly, the sum of Rs. 10,000 claimed to have been spent on completing the construction of the house in April, 1972, is also stated to have come out of the books of his proprietary business, Messrs. Apsara Hotel and Restaurant and, therefore, it also becomes tainted as the income earned from business which was being run with the money earned from illegal sources. Therefore, the finding of the Competent Authority that the entire investment in the purchase of the plot of the construction of the house had come out of the money earned from smuggling and other illegal activities and out of the business run with the help of such money is held to be correct and is upheld. The third item relates to the deposit with New Bank of India, Karol Bagh branch, in Account No. 5820. The affected person has stated before the Competent Authority that this bank account was in respect of his business carried on under the name of Apsara Hotel and Restaurant. Keeping in view the discussion in the order so far it is clear that as the business of Apsara Hotel and Restaurant is held to have been run from the money earned from illegal activities hence any money coming out o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... g of the appeal and has not been able to show how the non-supply of the recorded reasons earlier has prejudiced his case in any way. The appellant's plea that the detention order should be treated as having been set aside by the Supreme Court has already been discussed. Since the appellant's wife and mother had chosen to withdraw the writ petitions filed by them, the detention order cannot be deemed to have been set aside by the Supreme Court. On this ground the proceedings initiated and completed by the Competent Authority are held to be within the legal framework and, therefore, justified. The appellant's claim that he has not been provided with reasonable opportunity of being heard as contemplated under section 7(1) of the SAFEMA is also without any force. A reading of the Competent Authority's order under section 7 makes it very clear that the appellant had been provided with numerous opportunities of being heard. Merely because the Competent Authority did not agree with the contentions raised by the appellant and his authorised representatives it would not mean that a reasonable opportunity of being heard was not provided. A just reasonable and fair procedure was followed by ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... s "the COFEPOSA"), against the appellant, Shri Thanesar Singh and his father, Shri Jagat Singh, stood revoked by the Delhi Administration by separate orders, passed under section 11(1) of the COFEPOSA. The contention raised consequentially was that since the jurisdiction under the Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators (Forfeiture of Property) Act, 1976 (hereafter referred to as "the Act"), vests in the authorities, inter alia, by virtue of a detention order having been passed against the affected person, the same would be taken away the moment the detention order was revoked, and as such the proceedings initiated against the appellant by the Competent Authority, culminating in the impugned order, were without jurisdiction, and liable to be quashed. This point has already been considered and suitably dealt with by the learned Member in the order written by her. I would only add that the whole argument advanced by learned counsel for the appellant in this respect is outside the scope of the relevant provisions of the Act. The only contingencies which would take away the jurisdiction of the authorities under the Act, to initiate or continue with the proceedings under the Act a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e months. It has to be borne in mind that although four situations have been recognised in the statute, where the Act would not, or cease to, apply in the event of the detention order being revoked or set aside, revocation under section 11(1) of the COFEPOSA is not one of those contingencies as contemplated by law. This Act is a special piece of legislation, dealing with specified situations, I do not think that it is possible to go beyond the scope of the exceptions created by the provisos (i) to (iv) to section 2(2)(b) of the Act and take note of the revocation orders, which are of general nature, passed under section 11(1) of the COFEPOSA, to hold that jurisdiction of the Competent Authority to proceed against the appellant on the basis of the said detention orders ceased to exist, because to do so would be to attribute something to the intention of the Legislature which was not there, because had it been so, there was nothing to prevent reference in the Act itself, by adding the revocation order under section 11(1) of the COFEPOSA also to be a ground, by way of an additional proviso to section 2(2)(b) of the Act. Thus the mere fact of revocation of detention orders generally ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... t took the position of totally dissociating himself from his father. But the facts as enumerated in the "reasons recorded", copies of which were supplied to the appellant also, reveal a totally different position inasmuch as it is recorded that on August 31, 1962, one car, DLF 9770, was intercepted, in which the affected person (meaning the appellant) and his father were found carrying 13 gold bars valued at Rs. 1,62,000. It is further recorded that on June 9, 1970, Apsara Hotel, Karol Bagh (owned by the appellant, on his own admission), was raided and a search of room No. 21 resulted in the recovery of 10 gold biscuits and Indian currency worth Rs. 1,11,990. It was mentioned during hearing that during the raid this room was reported to be in the occupation of the appellant's father, Shri Jagat Singh. It is further stated that on June 2, 1977, there was a seizure of 20 biscuits weighing about 20 tolas valued at Rs. 1,33,000 from the appellant's father, Jagat Singh, while he was going on the appellant's motor cycle, bearing No. DHK 430. In a number of proceedings between 1970 and 1977, there were penalties in adjudication proceedings both on the appellant and his father. All this ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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