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2016 (8) TMI 1308 - SUPREME COURTTerritorial limits of the Court - jurisdiction of the criminal courts - Proceedings u/s 191,193, 200 IPC - deemed judicial proceedings in terms of Section 136 - undisclosed lockers details - search proceedings undertaken by the authorities under Section 132 - whether as the search operations having been undertaken by the I.T.Os. of Nashik and Dhule, the complaint could not have been lodged by the Deputy Director of Income Tax (Investigation)-I, Bhopal (M.P.)? - no part of the alleged offence having been committed within the territorial limits of the Court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Bhopal, it had no jurisdiction to either entertain the complaint or take cognizance of the accusations Held that:- The appellants as assesses, had residences both at Bhopal and Aurangabad and had been submitting their income tax returns at Bhopal. The search operations were conducted simultaneously both at Bhopal and Aurangabad in course whereof allegedly the appellants, in spite of queries made, did not disclose that they in fact did hold a locker located at Aurangabad. They in fact denied to hold any locker, either individually or jointly. The locker, eventually located, though at Aurangabad, has a perceptible co-relation or nexus with the subject matter of assessment and thus the returns filed by the appellants at Bhopal which in turn were within the purview of the search operations. The search conducted simultaneously at Bhopal and Aurangabad has to be construed as a single composite expedition with a common mission. Having regard to the overall facts and the accusation of false statement made about the existence of the locker in such a joint drill, it cannot be deduced that in the singular facts and circumstances, no part of the offence alleged had been committed within the jurisdictional limits of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Bhopal. Chapter XIII of the Code sanctions the jurisdiction of the criminal courts in inquries and trials. Whereas Section 177 of the Code stipulates the ordinary place of inquiry and trial, Section 178 enumerates the places of inquiry or trial. In terms of Section 179, when an act is an offence by reason of anything which has been done and of a consequence which has ensued, the offence may be inquired into or tried by a court within whose local jurisdiction such thing has been done or such consequence has ensued. Thus on a cumulative reading of Sections 177, 178 and 179 of the Code in particular and the inbuilt flexibility discernible in the latter two provisions, we are of the comprehension that in the attendant facts and circumstances of the case where to repeat, a single and combine search operation had been undertaken simultaneously both at Bhopal and Aurangabad for the same purpose, the alleged offence can be tried by courts otherwise competent at both the aforementioned places. To confine the jurisdiction within the territorial limits to the court at Aurangabad would amount, in our view, to impermissible and illogical truncation of the ambit of Sections 178 and 179 of the Code. The objection with regard to the competence of the Court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Bhopal is hereby rejected. In the result, the appeal succeeds and the impugned proceeding and the order assailed are set-aside.
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