MAHABIR PRASAD SARAOGI Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS application is directed against the conviction of the petitioner for offences under Sections 193, 465 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code.

(2.) THE petitioner is a partner of a firm known as M/s. Shriniwas Jhabarmal which carries on business at Dehri. THE other partner of this firm is the petitioner's brother, Shankar Lal Saraogi. THE firm was granted registration of partnership under Section 26A of the I.T. Act, 1961, in the year 1953-54. Under the income-tax law when a registration of the partnership is granted to a firm for any assessment year it can have effect for every subsequent year provided the firm furnishes a declaration in Form No. 12 along with the return for the assessment year concerned, stating therein that there has been no change in the status of the firm or in the shares on the partners as evidenced by the instrument of partnership. THE firm did not file any such declaration in the assessment year 1962-63. Consequently, the ITO, Arrah, issued a notice to the firm to show cause as to why the registration already granted to it should not be cancelled. THE petitioner appeared before the ITO on the 1st of October, 1963, and made a statement that the application in the prescribed Form No. 12 for the continuance of the registration in the assessment year 1962-63 had been filed separately from the return and it was sent either by post or it was filed in the office of the ITO. THE ITO rejected the plea taken by the petitioner and made assessment for the year in question on the basis as if the firm was an unregistered one.

(3.) THE petitioner denied the charges framed against him under Sections 193, 465 and 471 of the IPC. His defence was that the document was not forged or fabricated, that it did not bear his signature or writing ; that the business of the firm was being looked after by his brother, Shankar Lal Saraogi ; that the petitioner had no knowledge about the recovery of the declaration form from the file of M/s. Jai Hind Talkies and that he had been a victim of official manipulation of the I.T. department. THE petitioner also, of course, took the plea that the different offences for which he has been charged could not be tried together ; that the ITO was not competent to file a complaint against him in view of the provisions of Section 195 of the Cr. PC, 1898, and that the prosecution was barred in view of the provisions contained in Section 479A of the Code.