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2013 (1) TMI 318 - HC - Income TaxSearch u/s 132 - prohibitory orders passed u/s 132(3) with respect to three bank lockers of the petitioner - direction from income tax department to release the papers / documents seized from the residence of the petitioner - whether there was any reason to suspect to enter and search the residence of the petitioner? - Held that:- The information must not be in the nature of some surmise or conjecture, but it must have some tangible backing. Until and unless information is of this quality, it would be difficult to formulate a belief because the belief itself is not just an ipse dixit, but is based on reason and that is why the expression used is “reason to believe” and not simply ‘believes”. As decided in H. L. Sibal Versus CIT, Punjab And Others [1975 (7) TMI 67 - PUNJAB AND HARYANA HIGH COURT] the word "information" has been defined in the Shorter Oxford Dictionary as "that of which one is apprised or told". The word "reason" has been defined as "a statement of fact employed as an argument to justify or condemn some act". On the other hand, the word "conclusion" is defined as "a judgment arrived at by reasoning, an inference, deduction, etc.”. In the present case, it is found that the so-called information is undisclosed and what exactly that information was, is also not known. At one place in the affidavit of Deputy Director of Income-tax, it has been mentioned that he got information that there was a “likelihood” of the documents belonging to the DS Group being found at the residence of the petitioner. That by itself would amount only to a surmise and conjecture and not to solid information and since the search on the premises of the petitioner was founded on this so-called information, the search would have to be held to be arbitrary. Also when the search was conducted on 21.01.2011, no documents belonging to the DS Group were, in fact, found at the premises of the petitioner - warrant of authorization u/s 132(1) had been issued in the name of the petitioner and, therefore, the information and the reason to believe were to be formed in connection with the petitioner and not the DS Group. None of the clauses (a), (b) or (c) mentioned in Section 132(1) stood satisfied in the present case and, therefore, the warrant of authorization was without any authority of law as had the warrant of authorization been issued in the name of the DS Group and in the course of the searches conducted by the authorized officer, the premises of the petitioner had also been searched, then the position might have been different. But, in the present case, that is not what has happened as the warrant of authorization was in the name of the petitioner and, therefore, it was absolutely necessary that the pre-conditions set out in Section 132(1) ought to have been fulfilled. Since those pre-conditions had not been satisfied, the warrant of authorisation would have to be quashed - search conducted on 21.01.2011 at the premises of the petitioner would be illegal therefore prohibitory orders would also be liable to be quashed - jewellery / other articles / documents are to be unconditionally released to the petitioner - writ petition allowed.
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