TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1967 (11) TMI 16
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.... K. Krishnaswami (respondent), but there are several very good reasons why we need not cover the entire area of these submissions. Actually, the relief now asked for is restricted in scope, and depends on the application of a certain limited principle of the procedural law. Again, in view of the other proceedings that are pending now in this court between the same parties, and which are sub judice, and further, in view of the admittedly most acrimonious and embittered relationship between the parties, it appears to us to be expedient and desirable to limit the scope of our observations to the issue involved. Very briefly stated, the point is whether the appellant-firm, represented by Sri G. Vasantha Pai, is entitled to inspect the proceedi....
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....by any part of it, on any principle of res judicata, or an analogous concept, the request of the firm to inspect the documents is not bona fide. Counsel also points out that the nature of those proceedings is unique, there is authority for the view that such proceedings are not in appellate jurisdiction, but are really comprised in a special advisory jurisdiction of this court. Rule 65 of the Appellate Side Rules (old), which has been relied on by Sri Vasantha Pai for the petitioner-firm, can, therefore, have no conceivable application. Where the rule does not apply, and the jurisdiction is special and governed only by the provisions of the Indian Income-tax Act, the request for inspection ought to be refused. It is further contended that, ....
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....d to be relevant and essential for defences in other pending proceedings. We shall very briefly state our reasons why, in our view, the interests of justice do require the grant of the request of the petitioner-firm, at least to the extent of inspection of the documents in the tax case, and the margin notes thereon with regard to identification of those doument. But, in our view, with regard to grant of copies of such documents, which are themselves copies, we cannot now proceed into the matter of the remedies that may be available to the petitioner-firm. The petitioner-firm will have to move this court, in appropriate jurisdiction in the two pending proceedings, and will have to establish its case, with regard to the copy of each document....
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....e concerned party may seek to rely on those very observations as relevant, and as having some probative value. We do not propose to discuss here the case law under section 13, but we are satisfied that the petitioner-firm has a conceivable interest in repelling the effect of the remarks of the Division Bench. That appeal necessarily implies, quite apart from any review or appeal in the tax reference itself, which the petitioner-firm may or may not seek to file from the judgment in the tax case, that the firm will equally have an interest in knowing the nature of the material adduced in that case, upon which those observations happened to have been made. Indisputably, the jurisdiction of this court in the tax case is a special advisory juri....
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.... the record of this court. We find it difficult to conceive why a party who has shown a probability of his interest being affected, should be prevented from looking into the records of this court which are in the custody of this court, when he desires to know those particulars for his defence in pending proceedings. We may add that the learned judge (Kailasam J.) has referred to a privilege which might be claimed by the income-tax authority but that is now academic and totally excluded. Learned counsel for the income-tax department also appeared before us at the initial stage of the arguments, and submitted that the department was not concerned, and that it claimed no privilege whatever in respect of these documents. It appears to us that ....
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...., in order to pursue its further relief, or to more effectively conduct its defences in pending proceedings, the fact that certain of those documents have been referred to in the schedule of discovery of documents on the Original Side, is no bar or factor of inhibition preventing the inspection. Accordingly, we allow the appeal to this limited extent, viz., that the petitioner-firm will now be permitted to inspect the two sets of documents forming part of the record in T. C. No. 218 of 1959, viz., the printed paper book and the typed set. We record an argument submitted with some vigour before us by learned counsel for the respondent, that, while the respondent does not shirk any disclosure of these documents, and, indeed, has nothing to a....