It certainly is good times for some people. The Cubbon Park police on Friday told the Special Court for Economic Offences that they are so busy with election duty, providing security to Indian Premier League matches and executing urgent court warrants that they could not serve summons — issued by the Special Court — on Vijay Mallya, owner of Kingfisher Airlines, in a criminal case filed by the Income Tax Department.
Curiously, Mr. Mallya, also owner of the IPL team Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), has been present at several matches featuring his team at the Chinnaswamy stadium here, which comes under the jurisdiction of the Cubbon Park police station. The very visible Mr. Mallya has also participated in the award presentation ceremony at the venue for which the very same police is providing security.
The Special Court on February 20 issued summons to him on the complaint by the I-T Department for not remitting Rs. 74.94 crore tax deducted at source (TDS) from the salaries of employees for the year 2009-10, plus the Rs. 23.70 crore interest for not remitting the amount in time.
As per the summons, Mr. Mallya should have appeared before the court on Friday. When the case came up for hearing, the court took note of a communication from Cubbon Park police citing the above-mentioned reasons and seeking more time to serve the summons.
Though the summons was issued on February 20, the IPL match commenced only on April 4 and the Election Commission of India announced the dates for Assembly elections only on March 20.
After issuing summons on February 20, the I-T Department had filed two more similar complaints pertaining to non-remittance of TDS amount for the year 2010-11. All the three cases will come up for hearing on June 7.
