During the course of election expenditure monitoring for the Tamil Nadu State legislative assembly election of 2016, a search under section 132 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 was conducted at the residence of the assessee and cash was seized. The statement of the assessee was recorded under section 132(4) in which the assessee deposed that the seized amount was his unaccounted income earned through various activities like mediating for contracts and working as commission agent for various transactions with the Government during the assessment year 2016-2017. The assessee had filed his return of income for the assessment year 2017-2018 declaring nil income. The Deputy Director (Inv) filed a complaint for the offence punishable under section 276C(1) of the Act. Subsequently, the assessee filed an application under section 245C before the Settlement Commission, which accepted the income shown by the assessee for the assessment year 2016-2017 and granted him immunity from penalty. On a petition to quash the criminal proceedings, dismissing the petition, the Court held  that the assessee had failed to disclose the income for the assessment year 2017-2018 and had declared his income as nil. The only contention raised by the assessee was that the cash seized did not pertain to the assessment year 2017-2018 but pertained to the assessment year 2016-2017. The settlement application had been filed before the Settlement Commission and was duly accepted by the Settlement Commission. The complaint had been filed for not showing the income for the assessment year 2017-2018. If the complaint had been filed for the assessment year 2016-2017, then the assessee easily would have taken a stand that the seized money was the income of the assessment year 2017-2018. It was also evident from the settlement application submitted by the assessee. The complaint was filed before the assessee filed the settlement application before the Settlement Commission. Therefore, the assessee had conveniently taken the stand that the seized amount pertained to the income for the assessment year 2016-2017. Even assuming that the seized money was the income for the assessment year 2016-2017, it had to be proved during the trial. The word “Commissioner” had been defined under section 2(16) to include a person appointed as Principal Director and therefore, he was competent to authorize the Deputy Director (Investigation) to initiate prosecution under section 276C(1). There were no grounds to quash the criminal proceeding pending before the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate.