NUCHEM LTD Vs. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF INCOME-TAX

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY this order, petitions bearing Criminal Miscellaneous Nos. 5476-M and 3540-M of 1994 are proposed to be disposed of as the points pressed into service praying for quashing of the complaint filed by the Deputy Commissioner of Income-tax, under Sections 276c (1), 277 read with Section 278b of the Income-tax Act, 1961, are the same. Before the matter proceeds any further, it shall be useful to extract the facts of the cases noted above, in so far as the same are relevant for determining the controversy in issue.

(2.) WHEREAS , Nuchem Limited, in Criminal Miscellaneous No. 5476-M of 1994 filed by it under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, seeks quashing of complaint, annexure P-9, under the various sections of the Income-tax Act noted above, the same very company in Criminal Miscellaneous No. 3540-M of 1994 again filed under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, seeks quashing of a complaint, annexure P-12, under the same very sections of the Income-tax Act.

(3.) ON the foregoing facts, it is so pleaded and argued by learned counsel appearing for the petitioner that, as on the date of filing of this petition under Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code, as also on the date when the petitioner filed its income-tax return for the year 1987-88, there was a loss of Rs. 25,55,180. The Department concededly did not initiate any proceedings under Section 271 (1) (c) of the Act for imposition of penalty and that being so, no prosecution, in consequence whereof no conviction could possibly be sustained, at least at present when it is ultimately a case of loss on which no tax is leviable, whatever be the quantum of loss.