Reasonable Cause for Late Return: penalty under section 271(1)(c) unsustainable where disclosure, audit filing and voluntary offer showed no concealme...
Where the documentary evidence attributes the cheque liability to a partnership firm, the statutory scheme requires the firm to be impleaded and served with notice before criminal proceedings against individual partners can proceed; failure to implead the firm and to satisfy those requisites renders prosecution defective and individual conviction unsustainable. The evidential presumption of negotiable-instrument liability is rebuttable; admissions showing firm-related transactions shift the burden back to the complainant to prove a personal, legally enforceable debt, and absence of such proof defeats the prosecution's case.
Where the documentary evidence attributes the cheque liability to a partnership firm, the statutory scheme requires the firm to be impleaded and served with notice before criminal proceedings against individual partners can proceed; failure to implead the firm and to satisfy those requisites renders prosecution defective and individual conviction unsustainable. The evidential presumption of negotiable-instrument liability is rebuttable; admissions showing firm-related transactions shift the burden back to the complainant to prove a personal, legally enforceable debt, and absence of such proof defeats the prosecution's case.
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