The Karnataka High Court while quashing the FIR held that the police cannot register FIR against Tax Officers, demand diary seized during search.
The petition was filed by the Director General (Investigation), Principal Director of Income Tax (Investigation) and Principal Commissioner of Income Tax (Central), I-T Department, Justice M Nagaprasanna passed the order quashing the FIR dated February 28, 2017 and all further proceedings.
The FIR was registered based on Congress MLC K. Govindaraj’s complaint, which was lodged after Income Tax sleuths searched his house and seized various documents, including a personal diary.
After the FIR was registered, the police issued notice to the Income Tax officials to hand over the diary which was seized during the search and also wanted them to divulge the names of those who had conducted the search and seized the documents. Hence, Income Tax officials knocked on the doors of the court.
According to the Income Tax Department, the diary had recordings of various transactions with abbreviations and amounts against each of the abbreviations. “It is rather shocking that both the complainant and the police want only the diary and no other document for investigation of the allegations of 15 offences.
The single bench of Justice M.Nagaprasanna while observed that the first information report (FIR) registered by the city police against officials of the Income Tax Department in 2017 had “ulterior motive”.
“It is rather shocking that what the complainant [Mr. Govindaraj] wants in the complaint is the diary and what the police want to secure from the petitioners [I-T officials] is the diary; and no other document is required by the police for investigation of the allegations of offences, which run into 15 in number, but only the diary,” the court pointed out.
The court observed, “It cannot but be held that the SHO of Indiranagar police station was acting at the behest of the complainant to secure the diary by invoking Section 91 of the Cr.PC, thereby summoning the diary seized by the I-T officials.”
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