The Delhi High Court today reserved its verdict on the pleas moved by the Congress against the initiation of income tax reassessment proceedings against it for three years, 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17 by the tax authorities.
A division bench of Justice Yashwant Varma and Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav reserved the order after hearing Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Advocate Zoheb Hossain appearing for tax authorities. The High Court stated that the order will be pronounced by Thursday or Friday.
Appearing for Congress, Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi contended that the action of the tax authorities is barred by limitation as they could have gone back to maximum of six assessment years.
On the court’s inquiry as to what is the alleged escaped income by the political party, Advocate Zoheb Hossain said that as per the seized material, the amount is about Rs 520 crores.
Meanwhile, Congress has also filed fresh pleas challenging initiation of tax reassessment proceedings against it for four different years.
The case was mentioned on Wednesday by Advocate Prasanna S before a division bench led by Acting Chief Justice Manmohan in the morning which agreed to list the matter tomorrow.
Earlier, the Delhi High Court had upheld the order passed by the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) on March 08 refusing to stay a demand notice issued to the Congress for recovery of outstanding tax of more than Rs 100 crores for the assessment year 2018-19.
Nonetheless, the court granted liberty to the Congress to move a fresh application for stay before the ITAT bearing in mind the developments which have occurred in between including that of an amount of Rs 65.94 crores having been recovered by the tax authorities pursuant to encashment of the bank drafts. It also remarked that Congress’ application, if so moved, may be considered by the ITAT with due expedition.