The Centre on Monday told the Supreme Court that the Income Tax department will not recover anything from the Congress party until the “conclusion” of the Lok Sabha elections.
A top court bench, headed by Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice Augustine George Masih, was hearing the petition filed by the grand old party challenging the proceedings of the IT department. This comes two days after the Congress said that it got two more notices in addition to the penalty of Rs 1,823 crore.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, during the hearing, noted, “I want to make a statement in this matter. The Congress is a political party and since elections are going on, we are not going to take any coercive action against the party.” The department is not commenting on the merit of the matter and all rights and contentions should be left open, he said.
Further, the Centre said that they are conceding that IT department won’t recover anything until election are over. “No recovery from the Congress until conclusion of polls.”
Appearing for Congress, senior Advocate Abhishek Singhvi appreciated the gesture and termed it to be “gracious”.
He said that all demand notices were issued in March and before for different years totalling approximately Rs 3,500 crore.
The Congress, on March 29, received a demand notice of Rs 1,823 crore from the IT department. As per sources, the fresh notice issued to the party is for the assessment years 2017-18 to 2020-21 and includes penalty and interest.
Reacting to the Income Tax department’s notice, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had slammed the BJP-led Centre and accused it of engaging in “tax terrorism”. He warned that when the government changes, action will be taken against those who have “destroyed democracy”.
“When the government changes, action will definitely be taken against those who ‘violate democracy’! And such action will be taken that no one will dare to do all this again. This is my guarantee,” Gandhi said in a social media post on X.
The grand old party alleged that the central government wants to freeze its bank accounts.
A day later, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh revealed that the party received two more income tax notices after the demand notice. “Two more notices were sent to us last night,” he said on Saturday (March 30).
With this latest notice, the Income Tax department has raised a total demand of Rs 3,567 crore from the party, the Congress had said.
A report by news agency PTI quoted sources as saying that the Congress lost income tax exemption in 2018-19 due to extensive use of cash in the electoral process.
Last week, the Delhi High Court rejected the pleas moved by the Congress party against the initiation of income tax re-assessment proceedings against it for four years.
Earlier on March 22, the court dismissed the petitions filed by Congress to challenge the re-assessment proceedings for assessment years 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17.
The latest four petitions for other assessment years in relation to which IT Department has initiated their proceedings, were dismissed by the court on similar grounds on March 28.
(With PTI inputs)
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