INCOME TAX ACT, 1961

Section 276C Section 277D Section 277

Prosecution - Offence under section 276C/276D/277 - Common/Joint trial of three complaints of same transaction, evidence, material, witnesses, etc. -

The assessee was said to be the Director/ECEO of one Consortium Securities (P) Ltd. On 28-7-2011, the respondent/department conducted a search on the premises of assessee on the allegation that an information was received Department preferred a Criminal Complaint being CC No. 511538/16 (Old CC No. 131/2014), under section 276D on 28-2-2015 against the assessee. Department also preferred two separate criminal complaints under section 276C(1) and section 277. In this petition, the stand of the petitioner was that the department had preferred these complaints on the very same material, evidence, witnesses and documents and the allegation in all the three complaints were to a large extent word to word same. Petitioner stated that he had filed an application before the Magistrate for clubbing of the three complaints and joint trial, which was rejected by the Magistrate. Held: Three complaints, in fact, were a part of the same transaction. The first complaint had been filed on the assumption that petitioner was holding an undisclosed foreign account and two subsequent complaints were nothing but to arrive at a figure to meet the ingredients of the first offence. The chart given reveals that the allegations, documents and nature of evidence were same in all the three complaints. In these circumstances, it will be in the interest of justice to have a common trial for all the three complaints.

REFERRED : Andhra Pradesh v. Cheemalapati Ganeswara Rao & Anr. 1964 (3) SCR 297' of a Coordinate Bench Of this Court 'Chandni Srivastava v. CBI & Ors.Chandni Srivastava v. CBI & Ors. decided on 9-2-2016 in WP (Crl.) 743/2013 and Mohan Baitha v. State of Bihar AIR 2001 SC 1490.

FAVOUR : In assessee's favour.

A.Y. : 2006-07 & 2007-08

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