BMA s.8

BMA s.8 — the law in short

What the courts have decided on section BMA s.8, in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.

• Arvind Balkrishna Gogte v Income Tax Department High CourtHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  My foreign company was struck off and the bank account closed years before the Black Money Act commenced. Can they still prosecute me for it?
  Not on this authority. The Karnataka High Court quashed eight complaints under ss.50 and 52 of the Black Money Act where the foreign company had been struck off and the Singapore account closed in 2010, holding that the deeming fiction in s.72(c) cannot be stretched to found criminal liability for conduct that preceded the Act. Article 20(1) bars conviction under a law not actually in force when the act was done, and a statutory deeming that the asset was acquired in the year of the s.10 notice does not supply that.
• Prateek Chitkara v Union of India High CourtCuts both waysNo later treatment found
  There is a look-out circular against me while my Black Money Act appeal is pending. Can I get it lifted, and does the appeal need money deposited first?
  The look-out circular was not quashed but was converted into an intimation of arrival and departure under clause 6(I) of the Office Memorandum dated 22 February 2021, on conditions including security over property, the Court holding that this was not a case detrimental to the economic interest of the country as there was no allegation of siphoning of public funds and no criminal proceedings had been initiated despite the demand. On the appeal, the Court recorded that no amount had been deposited under Rule 6(4) of the Black Money Rules, which requires the tax with penalty and interest on the liability not objected to by the assessee to be paid before an appeal under s.15(1) is admitted.

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.