The Delhi High Court on Thursday rejected the Congress’s plea challenging the initiation of tax reassessment proceedings against it for assessment years 2017 to 2021 by tax authorities.
The court said the pleas were dismissed in terms of its earlier decision refusing to interfere with the opening of reassessment for another period.
On March 22, the court had rejected the Congress’s plea challenging initiation of reassessment proceedings pertaining to assessment years 2014-15 to 2016-17.
While rejecting the plea, the High Court said the Income Tax Department “appears to have collated substantial and concrete evidence warranting further scrutiny and examination”.
The Bench also said the national party had “chosen to approach this court only a few days before the time for completion of assessment would expire and at the proverbial fag end of the proceedings”.
In the previous petition, the Congress contended that action under Section 153C (assessment of income of any other person) of Income Tax Act could have at best covered the period of AYs 2017-18 to 2020-21 and the three additional AYs 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17 would be barred by limitation.
‘No violation’
The I-T department, on the other hand, asserted there was no violation of any statutory provision and cumulative figure attributed to income from AYs 2014-15 to 2020-21 which had allegedly escaped assessment would stand at approximately ₹520 crore.
Earlier this month, the court had also 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 party for recovery of outstanding tax of more than ₹100 crore.
The assessing officer had raised a tax demand of more than ₹100 crore for the assessment year 2018-19 when the income was assessed to be more than ₹199 crore.
