The Income Tax Department on Wednesday knocked on the doors of the High Court of Karnataka questioning the notice issued by the Bengaluru city police, which asked the department to hand over the diary seized by I-T authorities from Congress MLC K. Govindaraj’s house last year.
The city police had issued notices following an investigation being carried out by them based on a complaint given by Mr. Govindaraj alleging that some persons had “planted” a diary and leaked its contents, while claiming that “no diary” was seized from his house during the search conducted by the I-T Department on March 15, 2016.
Justice Aravind Kumar stayed further proceedings based on the complaint by Mr. Govindaraj and ordered issue of notices to the police and to Mr. Govindaraj. The court passed the interim order after hearing the petitions filed by Director-General of Income Tax (Investigation), Principal Director of I-T (Investigation) and Principal Chief Commissioner of I-T (Central).
Mr. Govindaraj lodged the complaint on February 28, 2017 after some leaders of the Opposition parties referred to the diary and later television channels and newspapers carried reports indicating that the diary had details of the alleged “money sent from State leaders to the Congress high command.”
‘Diary was seized’
Making it clear that “a diary was seized from the bedroom” of Mr. Govindaraj’s house in the presence of his wife and family members as per the law during the searches, it has been contended in the petition that the police have no jurisdiction either to secure the seized diary or to entertain Mr. Govindaraj’s complaint in view of a bar imposed under the I-T Act, 1961. Pointing out that Section 293 of the I-T Act makes it clear that “...no prosecution, suit or other proceeding shall lie against the government or any officer of the government for anything in good faith done or intended to be done under this Act,” the I-T officers have sought for a direction from the court to quash the complaint itself.
‘Political pressure’
Referring to a political debate after the alleged leakage of “contents” of the diary, the I-T officials have alleged that notices issued by the city police for securing the seized diary appears to be “due to political pressure” for hampering the investigation, which is being carried out by the I-T Department based on the diary’s contents.
Denying the department’s role in alleged leakage of copies of the seized diary, it has been pointed out in the petition that scanned copies of the seized diary were handed over to Mr. Govindaraj on August 22, 2016 itself along with his recorded statement.
Stating that there are mechanisms to deal with the grievances of the assessees in the I-T Act itself, it was pointed out in the petition that Mr. Govindaraj had not raised any questions with the I-T Department over the seized diary.
