The Madras High Court on Monday refused to stay the trial proceedings in an alleged tax evasion case prosecuted by the Income Tax department against Member of Parliament Karti P. Chidambaram, representing the Sivaganga parliamentary constituency, and his wife Srinidhi Karti Chidambaram.
Justice P.D. Audikesavalu said no prejudice would be caused to the petitioners because of the ongoing examination of witnesses by a special court constituted here for hearing exclusively the cases booked against Members of Parliament and Members of the Legislative Assembly.
The judge also insisted that the petitioners include the Registrar General of the High Court as one of the respondents to their petitions since it was at the registry’s instance that the tax evasion case had got transferred from a Metropolitan Magistrate court in Egmore to the special court.
He granted time till Wednesday for them to implead the Registrar General and also to serve the papers on Additional Public Prosecutor C. Ayyapparaj so that the latter could also be heard before a decision was taken on the issue. The petitioners had challenged the transfer of the case to the special court on several grounds and sought an interim stay of the trial proceedings until their plea against transfer was disposed of. The issue was related to payment of tax following the sale of a 1.16 acre property at Muttukadu in March 2015. The I-T officials ad claimed that receipt of a cheque for ₹3.65 crore alone was shown as sale consideration and tax was not paid for cash receipt of another ₹1.35 crore.
Denying the charge as false and baseless, the petitioners claimed not to have received any money in cash from Agni Estates and Foundation Private Limited, which had purchased the property. Since the case was of the year 2015 and Mr. Karti Chidambaram had become an MP only in May this year, the case need not have been transferred to the special court, they said. Even otherwise, the transfer was completely erroneous since it had got transferred directly to a Sessions Court, the petitioners pointed out. They said there were actually four special courts (two presided over by Sessions Judges, one by an Assistant Sessions Judge and another by a Metropolitan Magistrate) in Chennai for hearing cases against MPs and MLAs.
Section 276C (wilful attempt to evade tax) of the Income Tax Act of 1995 provides for a maximum punishment of only seven years of imprisonment and such cases could be heard only by an officer in the cadre of Assistant Sessions Judge. Transferring the case directly to a special court presided over by a Sessions Judge deprives the petitioners of a chance of appeal, they contended. It was also argued that a sessions judge was not empowered to take cognisance of a case without it having been committed to him by a Magistrate.
In the present case, the tax evasion case had been simply transferred by an Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, in the rank of an Assistant Sessions Judge, to the Special Court presided over by a sessions judge, they said.
