The Income Tax department on Monday opposed an omnibus prayer made by former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s nephew J. Deepak who had filed a writ petition seeking copies of returns filed by her, the assessment orders and appeal orders with respect to her alleged income tax dues.
When the case was listed for admission before Justice Anita Sumanth, the I-T department’s senior standing counsel A.P. Srinivas said the prayer made by the petitioner was “vague” and that he could not seek copies of every other document by filing a single writ petition.
The counsel stated that some of the income tax disputes with respect to Jayalalithaa were pending before the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal and that the petitioner could get copies of those case papers by entering appearance, in his capacity as legal heir, before the tribunal.
“He cannot file a writ petition and seek copies of every other document. This is not the way. If this is allowed, then everybody will begin filing writ petitions seeking copies of all kinds of documents,” Mr. Srinivas said and contended that the writ petition was not maintainable at all.
On the other hand, advocate S.L. Sudarsanam, representing the writ petitioner, said the petitioner had been declared as the legal heir of Jayalalithaa but he was not in a position to defend the I-T proceedings effectively for want of necessary details.
After hearing them, the judge said the writ petitioner was not even aware of the I-T proceedings pending before different fora regarding his aunt’s tax dues and hence he could not be expected to enter appearance in those fora.
Stating that the present case need not be taken as an adversarial litigation, the judge told the I-T department that it would be in its interest to provide necessary details to the petitioner so that those issues could be adjudicated upon in the presence of legal heirs.
The judge, nevertheless, granted time till January 28 for the I-T department to file its counter affidavit to the writ petition.
