Gujarat High Court refuses to accept Income Tax department statement on raid at lawyer’s office
Refusing to accept an undertaking by the Income Tax department that they will seal “non-incriminating” data seized from a lawyer’s office, a division bench of the Gujarat High Court Wednesday said that it would now hear the matter on merits.
The bench of Justices Bhargav Karia and Niral Mehta was dealing with a petition moved by an advocate alleging violation of his fundamental rights, including that for practising his profession and his privacy, after the I-T department conducted a four-day search in November and seized documents and materials from his office and residence.
The bench has expressed concern over the manner in which the raid was conducted and has voiced its objection to the seizure of third party-related documents from a lawyer’s office. The department, on the other hand, has alleged the lawyer of indulging in unscrupulous practices and that incriminating material has been seized from his premises.
On Wednesday, additional solicitor (ASG) general N Venkataraman, appearing for the Income Tax (I-T) department, submitted that the department has given an undertaking in writing wherein the department has assured that “the seized digital data extracted on a separate hard disk from the working copy of the data shall be analysed on priority for the purpose of identifying the data which is incriminating in nature…the incriminating data shall be separated as far as possible and the same shall be stored in a separate hard disk. Thereafter the working copy of the data and the extracted hard disk containing the non-incriminating data shall be permanently sealed and shall not be accessed thereafter by the IT department. Both the said hard disks and the working copy of the data shall be sealed in the presence of the petitioner. A period of 4 weeks shall be required for completing the entire exercise depending on the cooperation of the petitioner.”
Justice Bhargav Karia, however, inquired who decides what is incriminating or non-incriminating material and instead suggested that the petitioner may be taken into confidence while segregating the material as incriminating vis-a-vis non-incriminating or to have an independent person present during the process.
Justice Karia remarked, “Question is, who will decide (if) it is incriminating or not? Our suggestion is you also take the petitioner into confidence for analysis of his data or any independent person as held by SC in case of Batlibhoy, choice is yours. Because you’re the master of this search, therefore that discretion we are giving it to you…Each document has to be shown and he (petitioner-lawyer) has to be given assistance of an advocate if he requires or any expert person.”
ASG Venkataraman, however, rued that such a condition would effectively mean “stonewalling” the work of the I-T department in the case. “(This) effectively means that a seizure running into 100s and 1000s of crores is stonewalled…,” said Venkataraman.
The court has now kept the matter for further hearing on January 9 and shall be hearing the matter on merits of the case law.
According to the case records, the I-T department in November first week conducted a raid on the premises of Maulik Sheth who was representing a seller being probed by the I-T department pertaining to a land transaction. Sheth has alleged the officials seized the devices of his and his family members that contained confidential documents concerning his clients.