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TMI Blog1951 (8) TMI 14X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... o examine the accounts and registers maintained by the petitioner and verify his cash and stock, presumably under Section 14(2) of the Madras General Sales Tax Act and in order to see if the petitioner was evading any sales tax by not entering this sale in his bills, books and other accounts, day book and ledger. The petitioner placed his bill books before the Assistant Commercial Tax Officer for scrutiny. P.W. 1 perused them and initialled in them. When asked to produce the cash for the sales made that day (P.W. 1 admitted that money was not "goods" which could be inspected by him), the petitioner stated that there were no sales that day, as it was a holiday. Then the petitioner took out some currency notes and red papers from a small wooden box by the side of the cash box (it will be noted that he did not take them from the cash box) and put them in his pocket. The Assistant Commercial Tax Officer demanded the production of those papers and cash, but the petitioner said that they related to his personal matters and private affairs, and had nothing to do with the business, and refused to produce them. The Assistant Commercial Tax Officer's repeated requests to the petitioner to pr ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... cer made a complaint to the Commercial Tax Officer who, after some enquiry, was responsible for laying this complaint against the petitioner under Section 14(2) read with Section 15(c) of the Madras General Sales Tax Act, for preventing or obstructing the inspection by the Assistant Commercial Tax Officer of the accounts and registers maintained by the petitioner in the ordinary course of his business and goods in his possession. The learned Additional First Class Magistrate found that there was an omission in the statements, Exhibits P-3 to P-5, regarding the Assistant Commercial Tax Officer's request to the petitioner for showing the stock of shawls and the petitioner's refusal and direction to him to clear out of the shop. But he stated that that was only a minor incident, while the main offence was the refusal of the petitioner to produce the cash and papers, which he had put into his pocket from the wooden box and which the Assistant Commercial Tax Officer suspected would contain the sale proceeds of the shawl sold to P.W. 4. I may add that P.W. 4, the man who started the whole enquiry by the Assistant Commercial Tax Officer, swore in cross-examination that the petitioner sho ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ommercial Tax Officer, to prepare statements them- selves and request for signatures from the parties whom they want to charge-sheet later on relying on such statements as evidence. Even Magistrates authorised to record confessions have to observe many formalities and administer many warnings and have to record what the party states and cannot prepare statements themselves and ask the parties to sign them. So far as I know, no such power is given to any officer in this country, under our law, least of all to Assistant Commercial Tax Officers. It will be highly dangerous to the liberty and property of citizens if such statements prepared on the spot by Assistant Com- mercial Tax Officers and others have to be signed by them. The mis- understanding that day between the Assistant Commercial Tax Officer and the petitioner arose from the petitioner's refusing to sign that state- ment in spite of repeated (and illegal) requests by the Assistant Commercial Tax Officer. In my opinion, that was probably even one of the causes for instituting this prosecution, let alone the encouragement of it by P.W. 2, the petitioner's enemy. This is the only prosecution under Section 15(c) instituted by P ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... nd bring himself to trouble. Nor, if he has got, let us take an extreme example, one or two counterfeit currency notes of five rupees or one rupee denominations, is he bound to reveal them to the Assistant Commercial Tax Officer. Sec- tion 14(2) must be construed strictly. Even a business man is not bound to reveal all his private secrets, much less incriminating secrets, to people who are not authorised under the law to pry into them. It is not alleged by the Assistant Commercial Tax Officer or his witnesses that the papers were proved to contain a bill about the alleged sale of this shawl or indeed any accounts relating to the petitioner's business. I may even say also that under Section 14(2) the petitioner was not bound to allow any inspection of his goods or accounts or registers at that hour and on that day (lunch interval or a holiday) because Sec- tion 14(2) contains a significant phrase "at all reasonable times" which was misconstrued by the lower Court, relying on a contention of the petitioner in Ex. P. 2, that P.W. 1 told him that the Govern- ment had exempted that day from being a holiday. P.W. 1 swore in his deposition that the day was a holiday. He never alleged tha ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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