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Issues: (i) whether criminal prosecution under the Income-tax Act could be stayed or quashed merely because an appeal against the assessment order was pending; (ii) whether the CBDT instruction regarding persons above 70 years created an absolute bar to prosecution in the facts of the case.
Issue (i): whether criminal prosecution under the Income-tax Act could be stayed or quashed merely because an appeal against the assessment order was pending.
Analysis: Criminal proceedings under the Income-tax Act are independent of assessment proceedings. Pendency of an appeal does not, by itself, prevent initiation or continuation of prosecution, particularly where the appeal does not bear upon every alleged offence. The application before the trial court also did not disclose any proper statutory basis for staying proceedings, and the case was not one in which the Magistrate could invoke Section 258 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, as that provision pertains to summons cases.
Conclusion: The pendency of the appeal did not justify stay or quashing of the prosecution, and the petitioner was not entitled to relief on this ground.
Issue (ii): whether the CBDT instruction regarding persons above 70 years created an absolute bar to prosecution in the facts of the case.
Analysis: The instruction stated that prosecution need not normally be initiated against persons who have attained the age of 70 years at the time of commission of the offence. It was treated as a guideline and not as an absolute prohibition. The petitioner had not attained that age when the alleged offences were committed, and the earlier order relied upon by him was not treated as a decision on merits.
Conclusion: The age-based instruction did not bar prosecution in the petitioner's case, and the reliance on the earlier order was rejected.
Final Conclusion: The challenge to the order refusing to stay the criminal proceedings failed, and the prosecution was allowed to proceed.
Ratio Decidendi: Pendency of appellate proceedings under the Income-tax Act does not automatically bar criminal prosecution, and the CBDT instruction on age is only a guideline that does not create an absolute immunity from prosecution.
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