Wrongful treatment of an individual as a company's Principal...

Wrongful treatment of an individual as a company's Principal Officer can undermine criminal prosecution for delayed deposit of tax deducted at source when the prosecution is founded on an incorrect assertion that the individual was a director. The show-cause notice, designation order, sanction and complaint must rest on accurate corporate status. Where the Department accepts that the accused was never a director, vicarious liability cannot be sustained on that premise; the prosecution was quashed on its particular facts without precedential effect.