: Lawyers practising in the Madras High Court Bench here say that the Income Tax Act, 1961, confers powers on officials to conduct searches in any building, vessel or even an aircraft after compelling it to stop or land, and therefore, there was nothing wrong on their part to have searched the residence as well as the office of the former Chief Secretary P. Rama Mohana Rao at the Secretariat when he was holding the post on Wednesday.
Advocate S. Srinivasa Raghavan pointed out that Section 132 of the I-T Act empowers the officials to enter and search any building, place, vessel, vehicle or aircraft if they have reason to suspect that unaccounted money, gold, jewellery, other valuable articles or documents have been stashed away. The place subjected to search need not necessarily be that owned by the suspected tax evader since he/she could have stashed ill-gotten wealth in other safe places too.
“Therefore, much importance cannot be given to Mr. Rao’s statement that the search warrant did not contain his name and that it had actually been issued in the name of his son. Nothing in the Act prevents the I-T officials from searching his office in the Secretariat. It also does not contemplate obtaining prior permission from the Chief Minister or any other Constitutional authority before searching the office of a bureaucrat,” he said.
Concurring with him, advocate B. Saravanan, however, said that it might not be appropriate for authorities, conferred with the power to search any premises, to simply storm into places such as Parliament, Legislative Assemblies or court complexes since certain sanctity was attached to those places. “However, individuals cannot take advantage of it and seek immunity from search. The search in Mr. Rao’s residence and office can in no way be termed as a Constitutional assault,” he added.
Mr. Raghavan stated that the Act empowers the taxmen to break open the lock of any door, window, box, locker, safe or almirah, if the keys were not available, and seize the incriminating materials. It also permits them to requisition the services of the State police or the Central paramalitary forces such as Central Reserve Police Force or even both for conducting the search and seizure.
“However, in order to ensure that such search and seizure were not conducted at the drop of a hat or for flimsy reasons, the Act states that the authorisation for the search should be issued by high level officers in the rank of Principal Director General, Director General, Principal Chief Commissioner and so on only after they were satisfied that the materials placed before them lead them to believe that a person had evaded or would evade income tax.
“The statutory rules framed under the I-T Act contain the procedures and the format in which the warrant of authorisation should be issued. Therefore, the search would not have been conducted without elaborate deliberations and necessary authorisation from the competent authority,” he said.
