New Delhi, July 24 -- The Delhi high court has held that unauthenticated information received from a foreign country regarding an individual's Swiss bank account cannot be treated as evidence and form a valid basis for criminal prosecution for tax evasion under the Income Tax (IT) Act.

The ruling was delivered by justice Neena Bansal Krishna on Monday, in a plea by Anurag Dalmia to quash the case registered by the IT department for tax evasion.

The case was registered in 2016 on the basis of the information received by the French government regarding the existence of a Swiss Bank account in Dalmia's name till 2005.

Pursuant to receipt of information and unauthenticated documents received in 2011, the department conducted a raid in his ...