1937 (4) TMI 20

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....ed form and verified in the prescribed manner, of his total income during the previous year. Hazarilal submitted the return Ex. P. 1 duly verified and dated 14-5-34 showing his total income for the year as Rs. 896-4-6. The Income tax Officer did not accept this return as correct and issued notices to Hazarilal under Secs. 22(4) and 23(2) of the Act, calling upon him (i) to produce his account (ii) to attend at the Income-tax Officer's office to produce or to cause to be there produced any evidence on which he relied in support of his return. Hazarilal appeared before the Income-tax Officer on 16-6-34 when he amended the return so as to show his total income for the year as Rs. 754-7-9 and he produced his accounts and also certain statem....

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....ition, page 947, it is stated that the provisions in Sec. 52 is without prejudice to that in Sec. 476 of the Criminal Procedure Code under which a Court can direct a prosecution in respect of the offences mentioned in that section and committed before the 'Court', and that all the Officers, Assistant Commissioners and Commissioners are evidently 'Courts' for this purpose. It was held in Re Nataraja Iyer and In re Punamchand Maneklal that an Income-tax Officer is a revenue Court, and Subhedar, A.J.C., took the view in Criminal Revision No. 193 of 1933, that it is open to the Income-tax Officer to act under Sec. 476 Criminal Procedure Code, and make a complaint of the offence committed before him. I think there is no doubt tha....

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....e account books have been found to be false it necessarily follows that the statement of the income was false. The conviction under Sec. 182 is therefore upheld. 6. The second charge was that Hazarilal on 14-5-34 in the course of judicial proceedings before the Income-Tax Officer stated in evidence that the return of income given by him was a true and complete statement of the income received, which statement he either knew or believed to be false or did not believe to be true, and thereby committed an offence punishable under Sec. 193 of the Indian Penal Code. This charge is based on the verification clause attached to the statement of income. Sec. 52 of the Income tax Act states that such a false verification is an offence under Sec. 1....

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....the Income tax Officer and that he could not therefore be said to use them as evidence. I have been referred to the decisions in Assistant Sessions Judge, North Arcot v. Ramammal and Re Muthia Chetty. I agree that where a forged document has merely been produced in compliance with an order by the Court it cannot be said to have been used as evidence. But I do not think that no offence can be committed under Sec. 196 if the document has been produced in compliance with the order of the Court. As Page, J. has pointed out in Emperor v. Mohit Kumar Mukherjee "whether there has been an 'user' or not depends upon the circumstances of each case", and the question whether there has been a fraudulent or dishonest user is one of fact. In the ....