Karnataka high court: Search powers are person-centric

Bengaluru: Section 132 of the Income-tax Act, which empowers tax authorities to conduct search and seizure operations, is person-centric and not premises-centric, the high court specified in its recent judgment.A division bench of Justices SG Pandit and KV Aravind allowed a writ appeal filed by the income-tax department and restored notices issued under Section 153C of the Act, which empowers tax authorities to assess or reassess the income of a person (third party) other than the "searched person".On Sept 14, 2017, a search was conducted on the premises of CR Ram Mohan Raju on the suspicion that the books of account, documents and other valuable articles belonging to one K Narayan Raju were kept there.The assessing officer of Narayan Raju initiated proceedings and recorded that the seized documents belonged to Mohan Raju and accordingly handed over the material to the latter's assessing officer.The assessing officer of Mohan Raju issued a notice under Section 153C of the Act for the assessment years 2011-12 to 2018-19.The notice was challenged in the writ petition on the ground that since the premises of Mohan Raju were searched, he ought to have been treated as a "searched person".The court held that the warrant of authorisation is, therefore, fundamentally person-specific, while the place of search is merely incidental to such satisfaction.