Punamchand Maneklal, In Re

Scott, C.J:— The question referred for decision is “whether an Income-Tax Collector is or is not a ‘Court’ within the meaning of that word as used in clauses (6) and (c) of section 195 of the Criminal Procedure Code”.

The word “Court” is defined in the section by a limited and exclusive definition to mean a Civil, Revenue or Criminal Court. It cannot be contended that the Income-Tax Collector is a Civil or Criminal Court and therefore the only question is whether he at any time in the discharge of his functions under Act II of 1886 is a Revenue Court.

The term “Revenue Court” is not in general use but it has been used occasionally by local legislatures in this country in connection with the decision of questions relating to revenue by officers specially and exclusively empowered to decide them. See, for example, the City of Bombay Revenue Act and the Revenue Code of Oudh, the United Provinces and the Punjab (U.P Act II of 1901, sections 59-62; U.P Act III of 1901, section 189 et seq.; Oudh Act XXII of 1886, section 109; Punjab Act XVI of 1887, section 101). Speaking generally, revenue questions are removed from the cognizance of Civil Courts and the officer charged with the duty of deciding disputed questions relating to revenue between the individual and the Government would be invested with the functions of a Revenue Court. The inquiries into such questions assigned to officers empowered eo nomine as “Revenue Courts” in the United Provinces are entertained and disposed of by corresponding officers in Bombay under Chapters XII and XIII of the Bombay Land Revenue Code of 1879 though the word “Revenue Court” is not to be found anywhere in those chapters. We have no doubt that the Bombay inquiries would be equally proceedings in Revenue Courts in the sense in which that term is used in the definition clause of section 195 of the Criminal Procedure Code. We also think that inquiries conducted according to the forms of judicial procedure under Chapter IV of the Income-Tax Act and execution proceedings under Chapter V (which provides that an order passed by a Collector on a petition under Chapter IV shall have the force of a decree of a Civil Court in suit in which the Government is the plaintiff and the defaulter is the defendant) are proceedings in a Revenue Court.

The express exclusion from the term “Court” in section 195 of a Registrar or a Sub-Registrar, though a legislative recognition of the correctness of the conclusion in Queen-Empress v. Tulja, does not affect the question now before us as to the scope of the term “Revenue Court”, for a Registrar or Sub-Registrar under the Registration Act could not by any stretch of imagination be held to be a Revenue Court. The Registration Act has its special group of sections corresponding with Chapter XI of the Indian Penal Code and sections 195 and 476 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

For the above reasons we answer the question referred in the affirmative.

On the 9th April 1914, the Divisional Court (Heaton and Shah, JJ.) passed the following order:—

Order:— Having regard to the decision of the Full Bench that an Income-Tax Collector is a “Revenue Court” within the meaning of section 195 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the proceedings are set aside and the rule issued by this Court on the 7th January 1914 is made absolute.

Rule made absolute.

R.R