The petitioners filed application before the High Court by filing criminal Writ petition to quash the continuation of proceedings before the Magistrate court. Quashing the proceedings the Court held that complaint had been filed against company and its directors for delay in deposit of TDS deducted, which had already been deposited with interest as provided in section 201(1A), since no notice was issued to any of directors under section 2(35)(b) to treat them as principal officer of company and no averments had been made in complaint regarding ‘Consent’, ‘Connivance’ or ‘negligence’ as required under section 278B(2), complaint was bereft of essential ingredients and statutory requirements of section 278B and thus liable to be quashed. Court also held that section 276B (as amended by Finance Act, 1997) covers cases of ‘Failure to pay’ and not mere ‘Delay in deposit’ of TDS and thus in case TDS has been paid in full, even with some delay, section 276B would not be attracted. Court also held that merely issuance of notice would not ipso facto become a final “determination” of classification and identification of a person as ‘Principal Officer’. Term ‘Principal Officer’ has been used singular and not in ‘plural’ and word officer is further premised by word ‘Principal’ which signifies main officer and not all officers who may someway be connected with management and administration of company and said determination can be done while passing an order under section 201(1).The term ’ Director ’ which is separately defined under section 2(20) has not been used in section 278B and as such, the director is not covered thereunder. Court also observed that the Revenue had not invoked the provisions of section 221 read with section 201(1) to impose penalty against the assessee or the principal officer of the assessee for “failure to pay the whole or any part of tax, as required by or under this Act” and hence could not be permitted to prosecute the petitioners for the same substantive act which was also categorized as an “offence” under section 276B. As such, further trial of the petitioners by the criminal court was not permissible, which would be tantamount to abuse of process of the court. The orders of issuance of process by the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrates and the orders rejecting the criminal revision applications by the Additional Sessions Court were quashed and set aside. (AY. 2012-13 to 2018-19)