HARYANA RANG UDYOG Vs. INCOME TAX OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ALL these writ petitions raise a common question of law. They are accordingly disposed of by a common judgment. However, for the sake of convenience the facts of C W. P. No. 1255 of 1981 are noted.

(2.) THIS petition is filed by two petitioners. Petitioner No. 1 is a private limited company of which petitioner No. 2 is the director. On November 29, 1978, the petitioner -company filed an application under Section 245C(1) of the Income -tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter to be referred to as 'the Act' for short) before the Settlement Commission for settlement of its case under the Act. This application is referred to by the petitioners in the petition as the 'main settlement application'. At the time of making this application various proceedings under the Act were pending against the petitioner -company in respect of the assessment years 1977 -78 and 1978 -79. Thus in entry No. 5 of this main settlement application the petitioner mentioned these two assessment years only.

(3.) WHILE this main settlement application was still pending and had not been admitted, the Director of Inspection conducted a search and seizure operation under Section 132 of the Act upon the premises of the petitioners and others connected with the first petitioner -company. This happened on November 13, 1979. It may be mentioned that the individual persons from whom seizure of various properties were made during the search as aforesaid have since admitted through their individual affidavits before the Settlement Commission that the properties seized from them and retained by the Income -tax Department belonged to the first petitioner -company. The Commissioner of Income -tax has also accepted this as a factually correct position.