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2013 (9) TMI 566 - HC - Income TaxSearch and Seizure Operations u/s 132 of Income Tax Act - Privilege u/s 123 and 124 of Evidence Act - The Income Tax department has claimed privilege of disclosing the satisfaction note to the petitioner - Held that:- It cannot be denied that the Finance Intelligence Unit (FIU), Ministry of Finance, Government of India - a Central National Agency reporting directly to the Finance Minister, was responsible for receiving, processing, analyzing and disseminating information related to suspected financial transactions - It was also responsible for coordinating and strengthening the efforts of national and international agencies, investigation in pursuance to global efforts against money laundering, terrorist financing and related crimes - The source, method and manner in collecting the information may be relevant for the security of organisation and the personnel involved and the methods adopted by them for collecting and processing the information - The preparation of the satisfaction note on such information could thus be treated as unpublished documents for which the Head of the Department namely the Director General of Income Tax (Investigation), UP and Uttrakhand had validly claimed privilege under Sections 123 and 124 of the Evidence Act - We do not find that claim of privilege was not for bonafide purpose. The information of large amount of cash transactions in foreign bank may have generally raised doubts in bonafide manner on the nature of transactions - A large amount of accounted black money was floating in the market which poses a serious threat to the national economy - The Government of India had adopted several methods to discouraging the parallel economy being run by unscrupulous persons - The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), Ministry of Finance, Government of India was engaged in collecting such information against the money laundering, terrorist financing and related crimes - The sources and methods of the organisation collecting and processing such sensitive information cannot be subjected to public scrutiny to jeopardize the interest of the organisation and national interest. Relying upon well-established principles of claiming privilege under Sections 123 and 124 of the Evidence Act in the judgments cited as above, we allow the application filed by the Income Tax department. Decided in favour of Revenue.
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