Jurisdictional threshold: income tax offences must be tried by a Judicial Magistrate of the first class, altering forum nomenclature.
Clause 520 mandates that no court inferior to a Judicial Magistrate of the first class shall try any offence under the Income Tax Bill, 2025, creating a uniform jurisdictional threshold for all tax offences. The provision modernizes terminology compared with Section 292 of the 1961 Act by omitting presidency magistrates, aligning with the CrPC framework and metropolitan magistrates' equivalence, while leaving potential ambiguities about special statute courts and transitional application. Its practical effect is to require complaints be filed before competent magistrates and to enable jurisdictional challenges where proceedings are instituted in inferior forums.