Delhi HC reserves order on Congress’ pleas against tax re-assessment proceedings

New Delhi, Mar 20 (PTI) The Congress party on Wednesday contested in the Delhi High Court the tax reassessment proceedings initiated against it by the Income Tax department for three successive years till 2016-17, claiming they were barred by limitation.

The I-T department, however, asserted there was no violation of any statutory provision by the tax authority.

The court reserved its order on the pleas filed by the Congress party and is likely to pronounce it in the next couple of days.

“You will get the order by tomorrow or the day after,” a bench of Justices Yashwant Varma and Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav said after hearing the lawyers representing the Congress and the I-T Department.

The court was hearing Congress’ pleas against reassessment proceedings for three years 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17.

Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, representing the Congress party, 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.

He said the reassessment proceedings are being done in violation of the provisions of the Income Tax Act.

Advocate Zoheb Hossain, appearing for the I-T department, said there has been no violation of the statutory provisions by the authorities, and as per the material recovered, the “escaped” income by the party is more than Rs 520 crore.

Meanwhile, the Congress has also approached the high court with fresh pleas against tax reassessment proceedings initiated for four different years.

In the morning, the pleas were mentioned by the counsel for the political party before a bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet PS Arora which agreed to list it for hearing on Thursday.

The counsel said the I-T authorities have re-opened the assessment of four years and urged the court to allow listing of the pleas for Thursday.

Allowing the request for urgent hearing, the bench said, “Okay, if in order by 12:30 p.m., it will be listed tomorrow”.

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.