Section 132(5)

Section 132(5) — the law in short

What the courts have decided on section 132(5), in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.

• Chironjilal Sharma HUF v Union of India Supreme CourtHelps taxpayerSuperseded by amendment
  Cash seized in a search was appropriated against a tax liability that the Tribunal later knocked out. The Department has paid me interest from the date of the assessment to the date of refund. Am I entitled to anything for the years before the assessment?
  Yes. The Supreme Court held that section 132B(4) governs the pre-assessment period in search and seizure matters while sections 240 and 244A govern the post-assessment period as per the order in appeal, and that there is no conflict between them — so interest for the pre-assessment period under section 132B(4) is payable in addition to, and not in substitution for, the interest already paid on the refund. On the provision as it then stood the assessee was held entitled to simple interest at 15 per cent per annum from the day after six months from the section 132(5) order to the date of the last regular assessment.
• P.R. Metrani v CIT Supreme CourtHelps taxpayerSuperseded by amendment
  Can papers seized in a search be presumed true against me in the regular assessment?
  That was not the law as this case decided it: the s.132(4A) presumption operated only within the search proceedings and not in a regular assessment under s.143. Parliament changed that by inserting s.292C in 2007. What survives from this judgment is that the presumption is rebuttable and that seized documents can still be used as ordinary evidence even without it.
• Pooran Mal v Director of Inspection Supreme CourtHelps department
  The search on me was illegal. Can I stop the department using what it took?
  No. Indian tax law has no exclusionary rule. The Supreme Court upheld s.132 and rule 112 and held that even if a search contravened the section, the material seized was liable to be used, subject to law, before the income-tax authorities against the person from whose custody it was taken. Illegality in the search goes to relief against the search, not to the admissibility of what it produced.

Listed strongest first: Supreme Court, then High Court, then Tribunal, then CBDT. Nothing here has yet been read in full by a chartered accountant — open an entry to see where it came from.