Tamil Nadu - Madurai   

Excise Department can issue summons: Bench

MADURAI: Summons issued by Central Excise Department seeking personal appearance of businessmen to explain their accounts will not amount to deprivation of personal liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution, the Madras High Court Bench here has held.

Dismissing a batch of writ petitions filed by three businessmen from Virudhunagar district, Justice K. Chandru said that summons could not be forestalled unless there was a deprivation of personal liberty. Seeking personal appearance along with records would not amount to such deprivation.

He rejected the petitioners' contention that the summons had been issued only to harass them though there was no requirement in law for the businessmen to appear in person.

They could always depute their employees familiar with the accounts to clarify the doubts of Excise Department officials.

“This court is unable to accept any of the contentions advanced before it. No proceeding has been initiated under the Central Excise Act and the petitioner has come before this court even before any statutory proceedings could culminate into a concrete finding.”

“Their only problem is that they do not want to appear before the officer for inexplicable reasons… It can be presumed that it was for egoistic reasons and not on any concrete legal foundation… This court does not find any legal injuries suffered by the petitioners by the receipt of the summons,” the judge said.

He also recalled that a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in Pooran Mal's case (1974) had held fiscal authorities should be given sufficient powers to prevent tax evasion in the interest of the community.

“It is a well known fact of our economic life that huge sums of unaccounted money are in circulation endangering its very fabric.

“In a country which has adopted high rates of taxation, a major portion of the unaccounted money should normally fill the government coffers. Instead of doing so, it distorts the economy,” the apex court had said.

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