Sivaganga Member of Parliament Karti P. Chidambaram and his wife Srinidhi Karti Chidambaram have moved the Madras High Court challenging the refusal of a subordinate court to discharge them from criminal prosecution launched by the Income Tax department in 2018 for alleged tax evasion in 2014-15 and 2015-16.
Justice N. Sathish Kumar on Friday permitted the special public prosecutors for the I-T department to take notice on the criminal revision petitions filed by the couple and adjourned the cases to June 19 for hearing.
A special court here, for hearing cases against legislators, had dismissed their discharge petitions on January 7.
The dismissal order was passed when two petitions filed by the couple in the High Court, challenging the transfer of the proceedings from a Metropolitan Magistrate to the Special Court, were pending. After filing those petitions, the couple also filed two more petitions in the High Court with a plea to quash the entire proceedings.
Disposing of all the four petitions by way of a common judgment, Justice M. Sundar on May 12 refused to quash the proceedings and asked the couple to face trial. He also dismissed the challenge made to the transfer of the case to the special court and held that they had failed to prove any prejudice caused to them due to such transfer.
The primary allegation levelled by the I-T department against the couple was that they had accepted part payment in cash for selling one of their properties at Muttukadu near Chennai to Agni Estates and Foundations Private Limited but did not disclose the cash receipts in their income tax returns for the relevant assessment years.
