HC dismisses Cong’s pleas against tax reassessment proceedings

New Delhi, Mar 22 (PTI) The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed Congress party’s pleas challenging the reassessment proceedings initiated against it by the Income Tax Department.

A bench of Justices Yashwant Varma and Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, while pronouncing the verdict, said, “We dismiss the writ petitions.”

A detailed order is awaited.

The high court had reserved its order on March 20 on the pleas filed by the political party against the tax reassessment proceedings initiated against it by the authorities for three successive years: 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17.

The party has contested the reassessment proceedings, claiming they were barred by limitation.

Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, representing the Congress party, had submitted that tax reassessment proceedings are barred by limitation and the I-T department could have gone back to a maximum of six assessment years.

The I-T department, however, asserted there was no violation of any statutory provision by the tax authority and that as per the material recovered, the “escaped” income by the party is more than Rs 520 crore.

Recently, the high court had refused to interfere with the order of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal declining to stay a notice issued by the Income Tax department to the Congress for recovery of outstanding tax of more than Rs 100 crore.

The assessing officer had raised a tax demand of more than Rs 100 crore for the assessment year 2018-19 when the income was assessed to be more than Rs 199 crore.