A search was conducted at the premises of a company where the assessee served as a director, leading to seizure of documents and issuance of a notice under section 153A. Despite the notice, the assessee failed to furnish his returns within the stipulated period, resulting in prosecution under section 276CC. It was noted that the Commissioner (Appeals), in penalty proceedings, accepted that the assessee sought seized documents to comply with the notice under section 153A, and since documents were furnished after the due date, non-compliance was not deliberate. Further, the assessee regularly appeared before the Assessing Officer, which showed intent to comply, and was affected by exceptional circumstances like CBI investigations and the arrest of his father-in-law. In view of the above factual findings, the presumption under section 278E stood rebutted, and documentary record and contemporaneous explanations established, beyond reasonable doubt, that failure to file returns in response to section 153A notice was not wilful. In the absence of mens rea, therefore, the very foundation necessary to sustain a conviction under section 276CC. In such circumstances, acquittal recorded by the Appellate Court deserved to be upheld on the distinct ground of absence of wilful default. Prosecution under section 276CC for failing to file returns pursuant to a section 153A notice is a distinct cause of action and is independent of penalties under section 271(1)(b) for non-compliance with a section 142(1) notice. Therefore, mere setting aside of penalty under section 271(1)(b) by an appellate authority does not, by itself, vitiate prosecution under section 276CC; however, willfulness of default is a critical statutory requirement under section 276CC.\u00a0 \u00a0(AY. 2015-16 to 2011-12)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
S. 276CC : Offences and prosecutions-Failure to furnish return of income-Proven to be non-wilful and caused by circumstances beyond assessee\u2019s control-The statutory presumption of culpable mental state under section 278E stood rebutted-Vitiating foundation necessary for conviction under section 276CC and justifying acquittal-Onus on assessee to establish beyond reasonable doubt that failure was not intentional-Acquittal by session judge was proper-Mere setting aside of penalty under section 271(1)(b) by an appellate authority does not, by itself, vitiate prosecution under section 276CC. [S. 132, 153A, 278E, Criminal Procedure Code, 1973, S. 378] <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-income-tax-act"],"acf":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9S2Rw-gJw","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64326"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64327,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64326\/revisions\/64327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}