The Income Tax Department assured the Supreme Court Monday that it will not take any “coercive steps” to recover approximately Rs 3,500 crore demanded from the Indian National Congress before the end of Lok Sabha elections 2024.
“Please record my statement that till the matter is heard next…whenever, we will not take any coercive steps…We will not take any coercive steps till the elections are over”, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the I-T Department, told a bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Augustine George Masih.
This comes a day after the INDIA bloc flagged the I-T action as a bid by the ruling party and establishment to choke Opposition parties in the run-up to polls.
The apex court was hearing appeals filed by the Congress challenging the demands made by the I-T Department. The bench recorded the I-T Department’s assurance and posted the matter for next hearing on July 24.
On Mehta’s request, the bench also clarified in its order that “it is needless to observe that the concession made by the SG with respect to demand is without prejudice to all rights and contentions that it may have against the plaintiff herein” and that “the…demand of approximately Rs 3500 cr is not strictly relatable to the controversy in these appeals and touch upon other demands which arise against the plaintiff.”
Appearing for the Congress, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi pointed out that the main civil appeal, which is pending, concerns demands regarding the 1994-95 assessment year pursuant to a 2007 notice.
He said that the department had already “collected Rs 135 crore by way of attachment of properties.” Singhvi said that “we are not a profit-making organisation and only a political party …Our case is gross receipt is not taxable”.
Calling the gesture “gracious,” Singhvi said: “I am very rarely rendered speechless. By my learned friend’s intervention, I have been rendered speechless. Kindly have it in July,” he said.
Mehta said the Rs 1,700-crore demand raised in 2021 was based on parameters laid down in a 2016 judgment.
Just weeks before the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections 2024 begins, the Congress Saturday said it had received fresh notices from the I-T Department for the assessment years 2014-15 to 2016-17, raising demands of Rs 1,745 crore. This, together with the notices for assessment years 1994-95 and 2017-18 to 2020-21, brought the total demand to Rs 3,567 crore.
In response to the notices, the Congress hit out at the BJP-led central government accusing it of indulging in “tax terrorism” to “financially cripple” it ahead of Lok Sabha elections.
On March 28, the Delhi High Court rejected four petitions moved by the Congress challenging the initiation of tax reassessment proceedings against it for a period of four financial years—2017-18 to 2020-21— by the Department.
Before that on March 22, it also dismissed the party’s pleas challenging the tax reassessment proceedings for assessment years 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17. It, however, left open the question “whether the asserted delay in commencement of proceedings would be fatal to the assessment itself” for urging at an appropriate juncture.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
First uploaded on: 01-04-2024 at 11:49 IST
