1983 (5) TMI 96

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.... the undisclosed income of the assessee which was estimated at Rs. 4,21,000 and he determined the tax payable thereon at Rs. 3,00,000, He therefore, retained the cash of Rs. 3 lakhs towards payment of that tax. On 8th October 1975 the Voluntary Disclosure of Income and Wealth Ordinance, 1975 was promulgated which enabled the assessee to make a disclosure of the seized cash of Rs. 3 lakhs and get the benefit of a reduced rate of tax available under the Scheme. Notice u/s 148 was issued on 5th March 1976 and after the assessee filed returns of income for the earlier assessment years in accordance with the voluntary disclosure made by him showing Rs. 3,62,980 spread over the asst. yrs. 1971-72 to 1975-76, total tax due thereon was determined a....

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....entitled to exemption u/s 5(1)(xxiv) of the WT Act. On the other hand, it was contended on behalf of the revenue that the order u/s 132(5) was only provisional and since it did not confiscate the amount, the assessee continued to be the owner of the asset and it was liable to be treated as part of his net wealth. It was submitted that the CIT was not the agent of the assessee and his retaining the amount in the bank was irrelevant for the consideration of any exemption u/s 5(1)(xxiv). In the alternative, it was submitted that if it was held that the deposit in the bank should be taken into account, the amount accrued to the assessee only from December, 1975 and therefore, it was not held as a deposit in the bank for more than six months, wh....

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....975 CTR (Ker) 35 : (1975) 101 ITR 854 (Ker) that when articles are seized under statutory provisions the officer who seized the articles will be in the position of bailee so long as the enquiry is pending and when the enquiry is over he is bound to return the article and would thereafter be holding the article on behalf of the person from whom it was seized. There is also a decision of the Gujarat High Court in Jayantilal Amritlal vs. CWT (1982) 26 CTR (Guj) 179 : (1982) 135 ITR 742 (Guj) which affirms that there is no curtailment of the ownership of an assessee in the article seized unless there is a confiscation even though there is a possibility of any confiscation. In the light of these principles the assessee never ceased to be the own....