HC comes to rescue of Arvind Swami

Orders that a garnishee notice issued to his banker shall not be given effect to temporarily

April 04, 2018 01:13 am | Updated 01:13 am IST - CHENNAI

The Madras High Court on Tuesday came to the rescue of actor Arvind Swami by ordering that a garnishee notice issued to his banker by the Income Tax department demanding ₹96.41 lakh towards advance tax, shall not be given effect to until the disposal of an application filed by him under Form 28A intimating the estimated income for the financial year 2018-19.

Justice T.S. Sivagnanam passed the order on a writ petition filed by the actor challenging the notice issued on March 26. The judge ordered that the Assistant Commissioner of Income Tax should give an opportunity of hearing to the petitioner’s representative.

The orders were passed after hearing arguments advanced by Senior Counsel P.S. Raman who contended that the actor had already paid 1.55 crore as advance tax for 2018-19 . On the other hand, I-T department’s standing counsel G. Hema Muralikrishnan claimed that the actor was liable to pay ₹ 2.51 crore.

In his affidavit, Mr. Swami, 47, stated that his income for the assessment year 2017-18 was ₹8.69 crore. However, he estimated that his income during 2018-19 would only be around ₹ 6 crore due to various reasons, including usual fluctuations in an actor’s income, and remitted advance tax of ₹ 1.25 crore before December 2017. Another ₹ 30 lakh was paid in March this year.

However, there was a delay in submitting Form 28A by his auditor and that had led to coercive steps taken by the I-T department including the garnishee notice issued to his banker. Now that the form had been submitted on March 31, the officials should forthwith lift the attachment and permit him to use the money lying in his bank account, he said.

“I have several pressing personal financial commitments that I have to meet including bearing the expenditure towards payment of fees for my children’s education abroad and the payments due towards the construction of my residential house which would be affected if these amounts were remitted to the I-T department by the third respondent (banker),” Mr. Swami said.

He added that the film industry was currently on an indefinite strike and all shootings as well as new releases had been stopped for more than a month leaving him with no source of professional income.

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