TMI Blog1971 (2) TMI 93X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ding to the department were handed over by the assessee and which according to the petitioner were seized from the premises. As the law then was, the seizure itself was illegal as section 41 was held to be violative of certain articles of the Constitution of India. But the Supreme Court in Commissioner of Commercial Taxes v. R.S. Jhaver(1), upheld the validity of section 41 of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act and in the course of their observation their Lordships expressed the view that any account books etc., seized without following the procedure under section 165 of the Code of Criminal Procedure must be returned to the assessee whose premises has been so raided and searched. The petitioner's case is that even in the search made, in ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... conceded that the limbs of section 165 of the Code of Criminal Procedure were not borne in mind when the inspection was made on 18th March, 1967. Primafacie, therefore, it is an illegal search. But, the seizure of books or material effected in a search which was made in violation of the prescriptions in section 165 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, cannot be said to be material on which no reliance can be placed by the revenue for any purpose whatsoever. As a matter of fact, in Annamalai Chettiar Co. v. Deputy Commercial Tax Officer[1965] 16 S.T.C. 687., which was referred to with approval by a Division Bench of this court, to which I was a party, in Sha Hastimal Khimchand v. Deputy Commercial Tax Officer, Tiruchirapalli Town-2(2), it w ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... his aspect which came up for consideration before this court in Annamalai Chettiar and Co. v. Deputy Commercial Tax Officer[1965] 16 S.T.C. 687. and in Sha Hastimal Khimchand v. Deputy Commercial Tax Officer, Tiruchirapalli Town-2Writ Petitions Nos. 1199 and 1200 of 1967; since reported at [1971] 28 S.T.C. 255., wherein the proposition has been laid down in unambiguous terms that an assessment on the basis of such incriminating material seized in the course of an inchoate and inappropriate search is not illegal. If therefore this is the reasonable conclusion that could be arrived at, the mandate given by the Supreme Court in Commissioner of Commercial Taxes v. R.S. Jhaver[1967] 20 S.T.C. 453 at 457 (S.C.). has to be understood equally in a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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