1990 (4) TMI 50

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....espondents Nos. 1 to 5. The Income-tax Department prosecuted the respondents for an offence under section 139(1) read with section 276CC of the Income-tax Act on the ground that there was wilful failure in the submission of return by the due date. Since the said default was alleged to be for three different years, there were three different cases filed against them. The delay was 27 months, 16 mon....

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....occasion to consider the meaning and scope of "wilful" while dealing with sections 7201 and 7203 of the Internal Revenue Code, 1954, which are similar to section 276CC of the Income-tax Act in United States v. Harry Murdock [1933] 290 U. S. 389-398. It held that the word "wilful" generally means an act done with a bad purpose and that an evil motive is a constituent element of the crime. In anothe....

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....e and want of justification. In CIT v. Patram Dass Raja Ram Beri [1981] 132 ITR 671, a Full Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, considering the term "wilful failure" occurring in section 276CC of the Income-tax Act, held that "wilfulness certainly brings in the element of guilt" and thus the requirement of mens rea. Our Supreme Court in Gujarat Travancore Agency v. CIT [1989] 177 ITR 455, ....

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....nd the profit and loss account could not be drawn up so as to file the return in time. They have also stated that they were not conversant with the preparation of the profit and loss account and the balance-sheet and thus the delay was neither wilful nor wanton. No doubt, this explanation was not accepted by the court below. But the question that still remains is, whether there is mens rea present....