Iqbal Ahmed Ansari, J.

1. The five appeals enlisted above are being disposed of by this common judgment and order, for all these appeals have arisen out of the common judgment and order, dated 31.5.2004, whereby as many as nine writ petitions were disposed of all these appeals have posed the common questions of law based on identical facts and have been heard together.

2. We have heard Mr. K.N. Choudhury, learned senior counsel, assisted by Mr. S. Shyam, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the writ petitioner-appellants in Writ Appeals Nos. 239, 240, 350 and 354 of 2004, which have arisen out of W.P. (C) Nos. 137, 1552, 6965 and 7008 of 2000, respectively, and Mr. K.P. Pathak, learned Additional Solicitor General, assisted by Mr. U. Bhuyan, learned counsel, appearing on behalf of the respondents in the four appeals aforementioned. We have also heard Mr. K.P. Pathak, learned Additional Solicitor General, assisted by Mr. U. Bhuyan, learned counsel, appearing on behalf of the appellant in Writ Appeal No. 306 of 2004, which has arisen out of W.P. (C) No. 7008 of 2000 aforementioned, and Mr. K.N. Choudhury, learned senior counsel, assisted by Mr. P. Upadhyaya, learned counsel for the respondents in Writ Appeal No. 306 of 2004.

3. For a better appreciation of the issues involved in the present set of writ appeals, we set out herein below, in brief, the facts of each of the writ petitions, the stand of the Revenue and also the reasons, which have led to the preferring of these appeals by both the petitioners as well as the respondents.

FACTS

(i) W.P. (C) No. 1552 of 2000

(a) The case of the petitioner in this writ petition is, in brief, as follows:

The petitioner, M/s. Ms. Associates, is a partnership firm, duly registered under the provisions of the Indian Partnership Act, 1931 with Smt. Jyoti Limbu and Smt. Tilmaya Chong as its two partners, having its registered office at Connaught Place, New Delhi, and branch office at GNB Road, Silpukhuri, Guwahati. The petitioner firm is engaged in the business of selling of State organised lottery tickets in various States, namely, Assam, Manipur and Meghalaya. The petitioner firm has been regularly filing Income Tax returns before the Income Tax authorities and the same have been finalised from time to time after due scrutiny. In pursuance of the warrants of authorisation issued under Section 132 of the Income Tax Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act), the business premises of the petitioner firm as well as the residential and official premises of the persons associated with the firm were searched on 17 to 23 June 1999 and 29.10.1999, a large amount of cash, jewellery, investment certificates, fixed deposit receipts and other documents including books of account were seized. The search was carried out in the office premises of the petitioner firm at Guwahati, Tinsukia and at some other places. Though the warrants were issued in the name of Mr. M.K. Subba, Mr. A.K. Subba and Mr. S.R. Subba, the search was, in reality, carried out against the petitioner firm. The warrants of authorisation were issued by respondents Nos. 2, 3 and 5 in violation of the provisions of Section 132of the Act and without any authority of law on the basis of various news items published in newspapers based on the draft and unsigned report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (hereinafter referred to as the CAG). The report of the CAG, which had been acted upon, was in a draft form and had not acquired any legal status and, hence, this report of the CAG could not have been treated as information within the meaning of Sub-section (1) of Section 132. This apart, the Nagaland State Assembly, later on, referred the report to the Public Accounts Committee, but the said Committee did not recommend any action against the petitioner firm. The petitioner firm is assessed to tax at New Delhi and respondent No. 5, who is based at Guwahati, issued, without any authority of law, the warrants of authorisation. The s