STATE v. ANDOH AND OTHERS

JUDGMENT OF EDUSEI J.

[His lordship stated the facts and found that the first two accused persons had a case to answer. With regard to P., third accused], I now turn my attention to the case against the third accused who is charged with four counts of omitting to make full and true entries of the bank balances in the balance sheets of Nadeco Ltd.

There is evidence of knowledge of the third accused about exhibits G and M because the second prosecution witness has deposed that at any time the third accused came to audit the accounts of Nadeco Ltd. these books were given to him. He cannot run away from the fact that he did not know that his audited accounts for Nadeco Ltd. would be used in assessing the company's income tax. The third accused is a professional accountant who is employed by Nadeco Ltd. to audit its accounts. There is no evidence that he [p.357] was told that his audited accounts would be used by the Commissioner of Income Tax but he must have known that his audited accounts would be relied upon by several persons including the Commissioner of Income Tax. I do not suppose the third accused can say that he prepares different final accounts for different purposes for Nadeco. There is evidence that bank balances prima facie are not taxable but there is evidence that these bank balances were actually items of income because they were created out of "general agency commissions" which were carried forward from year to year without any tax having been paid. The omission of the bank balances in counts (4), (6), (8) from exhibits AA1, AA2 and AA3 caused the Commissioner of Income Tax to be defrauded because taxes were not paid on these balances.

There is evidence, however, that exhibit BB1 was not sent to the Commissioner of Income Tax but the final accounts had been audited with the necessary certificate of the auditor, which was stated on exhibit BB1. Here too the third accused omitted from the balance sheet the bank balance which like the others is an item of income as evidenced by exhibits G and M. In fact they are balances carried forward from year to year. From folio 10 of exhibit G there was a payment on 4 May 1964 of agency commission of the sum of £G59,550. Exhibit G was fed by general agency commissions from exhibit M and the balances were items of income but they never appeared in any of exhibits AA1, AA2, AA3, and BB1. There is one important point made by Mr. Narayan which must be considered by this court. Counsel has argued that all