TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1990 (8) TMI 28
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.... of the prosecution against the petitioner is that he is an engineering contractor who wanted to take civil engineering contracts from the Public Works Department, Tamil Nadu Housing Board, etc., and for the purpose of registering himself as a contractor with the above authorities, he had to file income-tax clearance certificates as regards his income-tax dues. Though the petitioner was assessed to income-tax in City Circle V-(7), Madras, from the assessment year 1971-72 onwards, he had filed an application for an income-tax clearance certificate before the Incometax Officer, City Circle VI-(5), Madras. In the course of the search conducted under section 132 of the Income-tax Act on October 16, 1986, two tax clearance certificates in origin....
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....te of AIR 1962 SC) : "The word 'property' is used in the Indian Penal Code in a much wider sense than the expression 'movable property'. There is no good reason to restrict the meaning of the word 'property' to movable property only when it is used without any qualification in section 405 or in the other sections of the Penal Code. Whether the offence defined in a particular section of the Penal Code can be committed in respect of any particular kind of property will depend not on the interpretation of the word 'property' but on the fact whether that particular kind of property can be subject to the acts covered by that section. It is in this sense that it may be said that the word 'property' in a particular section covers only that type....
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....apable of ownership. There can, therefore, be no doubt that it is 'property' . . . The word 'property' does not necessarily mean that the thing, of which delivery was dishonestly desired by the person who cheats, 'must have a money value or a market value, in the hands of the person cheated'. Even if the thing has no money value in the hands of the person cheated, but becomes a thing of value, in the hands of the person, who may get possession of it, as a result of the cheating practised by him, it would still fall within the connotation of the term 'property' in section 420 of the Indian Penal Code." In the aforesaid case, the Supreme Court had referred to its earlier view in Ishwarlal Girdharilal Parekh v. State of Maharashtra [1968] 7....
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....tive the contention urged. The income-tax clearance certificate obtained by the petitioner was for the purpose of registering himself as a contractor with the Public Works Department, Tamil Nadu Housing Board, etc. The purpose of this certificate was to ensure that those authorities under whom the petitioner desired to register himself as a contractor must be aware of the income-tax dues of the petitioner. Therefore, even if it be that the income-tax clearance certificate as such may not have any pecuniary value, it certainly has immense value to the petitioner for registering himself as a contractor. Without such registration, the petitioner will not be able to secure contracts. Naturally, the income-tax clearance certificate becomes a thi....