BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court has quashed the First Information Report (FIR) and subsequent proceedings initiated against Income Tax (I-T) Department officials by the city police, who had sought a diary seized by the central agency from the bedroom of Congress MLC K Govindaraj in 2016, on the pretext of investigation.
According to the I-T Department, the diary had recordings of various transactions with abbreviations and amounts against each of the abbreviations. “It is rather shocking that both the complainant and the police want only the diary and no other document for investigation of the allegations of 15 offences.
It cannot but be held that the Indiranagar police were acting at the behest of the complainant to secure the diary by invoking Section 91 of the CrPC. Since the FIR could not have been registered against the petitioners in view of the specific bar under Section 293 of the Income Tax Act, the aftermath of such registration would be rendered without authority of law”, the court said.
After the FIR was registered, the police issued notice to the I-T officials to hand over the diary which was seized during the search and also wanted them to divulge the names of those who had conducted the search and seized the documents. Hence, I-T officials knocked on the doors of the court.
Allowing the petition filed by the Director General (Investigation), Principal Director of Income Tax (Investigation) and Principal Commissioner of Income Tax (Central), I-T Department, Justice M Nagaprasanna passed the order quashing the FIR dated February 28, 2017 and all further proceedings.