HC | Criminal case can’t be initiated for not signing Swiss bank consent form

Case Details: Anurag Dalmia vs. Income-tax Office - [2025] 176 taxmann.com 771 (Delhi) 

Judiciary and Counsel Details

• Ms. Neena Bansal Krishana, J.
• Manish Kumar Singh and Ms. Nusrat Hossain, Advs. for the Petitioner.
•  Ms. Naincy Jain, Ms. Madhavi Shukla, Jr. SCs and Shlok Chandra, Sr. SC for the Respondent.

The assessee filed its return of income, which was accepted and finalised under section 143(1). Later, the Assessing Officer (AO) received information from the French Government that the assessee held bank accounts in HSBC Private Bank (Suisse), SA, Switzerland. Based on this information, a search and seizure operation was conducted, and the assessee was asked to sign a consent form for the information available to the Swiss authorities.
The assessee refused to sign the consent form and furnish the information available with the Swiss authorities. Subsequently, the AO issued a notice under section 153A and made additions to the assessee’s income based on the alleged undisclosed foreign bank accounts. Furthermore, a criminal complaint was filed under sections 276C, 276D and 277 against the assessee for attempting to evade tax willfully.

HC Held

The Delhi High Court held that the information about alleged Swiss unauthenticated documentsBank accounts was received from the French Government, rather than from the original or primary source, namely the Swiss Government, which raises doubts about its authenticity. No prima facie evidence has been placed on record to establish ownership or linkage of any funds in foreign bank accounts to the assessee. Mere presence of the assessee’s name in an unauthenticated document obtained indirectly through a Foreign Government about alleged Swiss Bank Accounts does not shift the burden of proof onto the assessee to rebut the allegations as mentioned therein.
The assessee cannot be held responsible for verifying the correctness of the information received. AO has no cogent evidence to establish that the assessee has any Swiss Bank accounts, and the unauthenticated documents have no evidentiary value to make out a prima facie case against the assessee.
Furthermore, a raid was conducted on the assessee’s premises based on these unauthenticated documents, but no incriminating document, even remotely suggesting the existence of a foreign Account, was discovered.
In the absence of any evidence of concealment of the income or non-disclosure of the complete income for the two Financial Years, it cannot be said that the income aAssessment as submitted by the assessee was fraudulent or there was any concealment of true income. Thus, the criminal complaints under Sections 276C(1)(i), 277(1) and 276D were to be quashed.

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