Facts: A search operation under section 132 of the Incom-tax Act, 1961 was conducted at Assessee’s business as well as residential premises and articles consisting of account books and documents, cash, jewellery were seized by income-tax authorities. The Assessee filed a petition in the High Court challenging that search and seizure in residential premises of the Assessee as mala fide, oppressive, indiscriminate and vexatious and illegal. The Assessee also challenged the use of the material gathered during the search on the basis that the material / evidences were collected based on an illegal search. The High Court dismissed the petition and held the search proceedings to be valid. The High Court also held that even if the search was held to be illegal, it would not prevent the income-tax authorities from relying on material gathered in the course of the such a search.

Issue: Whether the department could be restrained from using the information gathered from the documents which had been seized during a search which was held to be illegal?

Views: The Evidence Act, 1871, which is a law consolidating, defining and amending the law of evidence, permits relevancy as the only test of admissibility of evidence. Neither the Evidence Act, nor any other similar law in force excludes relevant evidence on the ground that it was obtained under an illegal search or seizure.

The power of search and seizure, is in any system of jurisprudence an overriding power of the State for the protection of social security and that power is necessarily regulated by law. When the Constitution makers have not subjected such regulations to constitutional limitations by recognition of a fundamental right to privacy, there was no justification to import it into a totally different fundamental right, by some process of strained construction.

The test to be applied, both in civil and in criminal cases, in considering whether evidence is admissible is whether it is relevant to the matters in issue. If it is relevant and therefore admissible, the court will not be concerned with how such evidence was obtained.

Held: Even assuming, the search and seizure were in contravention of the provisions of section 132 of the Income-tax Act, still the material seized was liable to be used subject to law before the income-tax authorities against the person from whose custody it was seized. ( AY.1969 -70 , 1970 -71 )  ( WPNos . 446 of 1971 & 86 of 1972 ; CA Nos. 1319 & 1320 of 1968 & W.P. Nos. 798 & 800 of 1966 dt 14 -12 -1973)

Editorial: Earlier decisions on the similar issue may be referred ITO v. Sheth Bros (1969) 74 ITR 836 (SC), Comm. of Commercial Taxes v. R. S. Jhaveri (1967) 66

ITR 664 (SC)

“Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.”

– Mahatma Gandhi