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TMI Blog1942 (4) TMI 18X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... s of accused No. 1, which might be relevant, are not forthcoming. In order to remedy this defect, the investigating officer served a summons on the Income-tax Commissioner of Bombay, under Section 65 of the Bombay City Police Act, requiring him to produce certain documents lodged by accused No. 1 with the Income-tax Department in connection with his return for income-tax. The Commissioner of Income-tax declined to produce the documents in question, considering himself precluded from so doing by the provisions of Section 54 of the Indian Income-tax Act, as he clearly was. Thereupon the police authorities proceeded under Section 66 of the Bombay City Police Act to carry out a search of the offices of the Income-tax Commissioner, and seized ce ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... s, documents, evidence, affidavit, deposition or record, he shall be punishable with imprisonment or fine. The section does not in so many words say that the public officer is prohibited from producing any such document as is specified, but it is obvious that, as the production is made punishable as an offence, there is an implied prohibition against its production by a public servant. 6. In my opinion, there is nothing in Section 54 of the Income-tax Act to justify the extreme view taken by the learned Chief Presidency Magistrate that all the documents referred to in that section are made inadmissible in evidence. The section does not expressly enact that any documents are to be inadmissible in evidence. It provides two things : first of ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... nd proper meaning. If a document can be given in evidence, without requiring a public servant to produce it, there seems to be nothing in the section to preclude that from being done. This Court in Devidatt v. Shriram Narayandas (1931) I.L.R. 56 Bom. 324, S.C. 34 Bom. L.R. 236 and a full bench of the Madras Court in Rama Rao v. Venkataramayya [1940] Mad. 969, F.B. held that Section 54 of the Income-tax Act did not preclude the giving in evidence of the documents referred to, provided proper evidence of them could be given. In those cases the Court was considering primarily whether secondary evidence could be given of certain income-tax documents. But that question could not have arisen, if the documents themselves had been made inadmissible ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... de under the Income-tax Act. 9. Then it is said that in point of fact the seizure of this document, exhibit Z-44, by the police was illegal, and, that it must be regarded as constructively still in the possession of the income-tax authorities, and, therefore, falls directly within the prohibition in Section 54. That question depends on the construction of Sections 65 and 66 of the Bombay City Police Act. Section 65 enables an officer in charge of a police station to require the production of a document, which he thinks necessary for the purposes of any investigation being made by him. Then Section 66 of the Bombay City Police Act, which corresponds more or less to Section 165 of the Criminal Procedure Code, provides, so far as material, as ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... re, that the police are entitled to seize on a search under Section 66 of the Bombay City Police Act. 11. Then Sir Jamshedji Kanga has argued that Section 66 does not apply in this case, because there was no question of the Income-tax Officer voluntarily refusing to produce the document, or to comply with the summons which had been served upon him under Section 65. His argument is that the adverb "voluntarily" implies that the income-tax authorities can exercise a volition in the matter, and as they are precluded by the Income-tax Act from producing the document, they are not exercising any volition. But that argument involves reading the adverb "voluntarily" out of its context. What the section provides is, not that so ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... respect of any statement, return, accounts and documents mentioned, or for the purposes of a prosecution under the Income-tax Act. So that, for the purposes of certain prosecutions, confidential documents may be produced even by the income-tax authorities ; and I see no convincing reason for attributing to the Legislature any greater measure of tenderness for an assessee charged with other offences than the Legislature has chosen to express. To my mind the section does not preclude the course of action which the police have adopted in this case.
13. I think, therefore, that the learned Chief Presidency Magistrate was wrong in rejecting the tendering of this document.
14. Rule made absolute.
Sen, J.
15. I agree. X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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