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TMI Blog1981 (10) TMI 168X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tain an account of the day-to-day expenditure in slips of paper and the account book would be written at the end of the day. The defendant's employees would also maintain slips in which the entries would be recorded and ultimately all of them would be transposed into the books. It is in the course of advances to the said business that the plaintiff claims that a large sum was due to him. It was stated that on 17th May, 1977, the officials of the commercial tax department raided the defendant's factory at Periathambi Mudali Street, Madras, and his residence in the same street and seized the slips of paper, bills, vouchers, account books, etc. The plaintiff stated that on the same day his slips of paper and account books had been seized by the said officials and that the production of all the original documents was necessary to prove his case. He applied for certified copies of the said slips and account books, but the commercial tax department allowed him only to take a copy of his account books and did not give certified copies of the documents. It was under those circumstances that he filed the above two applications with the prayers mentioned above. In the counter-affidavit, th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ts, registers, records or documents produced under the provisions of this Act or in any evidence given or affidavit or deposition made, in the course of any proceeding under this Act or in any record of any proceeding relating to the recovery of demand, prepared for the purposes of this Act shall be treated as confidential and shall not be disclosed. (2) Nothing contained in sub-section (1) shall apply to the discloure of any such particulars............................ (iv) to a civil court in any suit to which the Government are party and which relates to any matter arising out of any proceeding under this Act." The provision falls into two parts. The first part deals with the confidential nature of certain documents produced before the sale tax authorities. The effect of any document being treated as confidential is to see that it is not disclosed to anyone else. The second part of the provision is enacted in sub-section (2) and it opens with the words "Nothing contained in sub-section (1) shall apply to the disclosure of any such particulars." These are various categories of persons or authorities to whom disclosure could be made. In other words, sub-section (2) of sectio ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... t. Ordinarily, any documents which has come into the hands of the commercial tax authorities in the course of any proceeding under the Act would have to be made available for consideration at all subsequent stages of the same proceeding. The civil suit referred to in clause (iv) is apparently one which can be filed by the Government in order to effect recovery of the tax due. The Government may have other courses open to recover the tax, but a civil suit is also one of the modes of recovery. In order that no difficulty is caused in the matter of production of any document in such a civil suit, to which the Government is a party, the legislature has considered it appropriate to make it clear by enacting clause (iv) of sub-section (2) so that the document could be produced in the civil court also. But this does not mean that the document could not be produced in a civil court under any other contingency. The maxim expressio units est exclusio alterius cannot be imported here for the construction of the provision of the statute. The statute has to be understood in the light of the words used therein. There is no scope for construction by implication here. The matter appears to be ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... isions of this Act, or in any evidence given, or affidavit or deposition made, in the course of any proceedings under this Act other than proceedings under this Chapter, or in any record of any assessment proceeding, or any proceeding relating to the recovery of a demand, prepared for the purposes of this Act, shall be treated as confidential and notwithstanding anything contained in the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (1 of 1872), no court shall, save as provided in this Act, be entitled to require any public servant to produce before it any such return, accounts, documents or record or any part of any such record, or to give evidence before it in respect thereof." It may be seen that the words "no court shall, save as provided in this Act, be entitled to require any public servant to produce before it any such return, ...................." have not been incorporated in section 57 of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959, while the rest of the provision is more or less practically identically worded. The words "no court shall" clearly imposed a fetter on the courts from requiring any public servant to produce any document. The Tamil Nadu Legislature did not think it fit to put an ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ould not disclose and that the court also could not summon and admit in evidence any of the documents that were prohibited by section 57. In the view of the learned judge, courts would not be in order in directing an officer to produce the documents which he has been statutorily prohibited from producing under section 57. The decision in Parvathi Ammal v. Mari Reddiar [1966] 17 STC 243 has been dissented from. We have carefully considered the reasoning in the judgment in the above case and we are unable to subscribe to it. The deliberate omission on the part of the legislature of the ban enacted in the Indian Income-tax Act cannot be left out of account in construing the provision. Even without going into section 54 of the Income-tax Act, 1922, we have earlier expressed our view that section 57 of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959, did not in any manner fetter the powers of the civil court in summoning the documents. We therefore consider that Velayutha Nadar v. South India Tobacco Co. [1973] 32 STC 202 was wrongly decided. The result is that the applications are ordered as prayed. The learned Additional Government Pleader wanted the plaintiff to specify the documents of ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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