https://www.taxtmi.com/caselaws?id=57659 A witness summoned under section 131 of the Income-tax Act who appeared, gave a recorded statement, but refused to sign it was not liable to a fine under section 131(2) for omission to give evidence. The statutory default is confined to failure to attend, failure to produce books or documents, or intentional omission to give evidence in response to the summons. The recording of evidence is not invalidated by the witness's refusal to sign, and neither Order 18 Rule 5 CPC nor section 80 of the Evidence Act makes signature a condition precedent to evidentiary value. Penal liability must be strictly confined to the actual statutory default. en-us Sat, 21 Feb 1976 00:00:00 +0530 Sat, 11 Dec 2010 13:43:35 +0530 TaxTMI RSS Generator https://www.taxtmi.com/caselaws?id=57659 A witness summoned under section 131 of the Income-tax Act who appeared, gave a recorded statement, but refused to sign it was not liable to a fine under section 131(2) for omission to give evidence. The statutory default is confined to failure to attend, failure to produce books or documents, or intentional omission to give evidence in response to the summons. The recording of evidence is not invalidated by the witness's refusal to sign, and neither Order 18 Rule 5 CPC nor section 80 of the Evidence Act makes signature a condition precedent to evidentiary value. Penal liability must be strictly confined to the actual statutory default. Case-Laws Income Tax Sat, 21 Feb 1976 00:00:00 +0530 https://www.taxtmi.com/caselaws?id=57659