In a setback to the largest Opposition party in the country ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed Congress’ pleas challenging the Income Tax Department reassessment proceedings against it for three years.
A bench of Justices Yashwant Varma and Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, while pronouncing the verdict, said, “We dismiss the writ petitions.”
The political party filed pleas against the tax reassessment proceedings initiated against it by the authorities for 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17. Congress claimed these proceedings were barred by limitation.
The I-T department said the ‘escaped’ income of Congress is more than Rs 250 crore. The HC previously refused to interfere with the order of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) which declined to stay a notice issued by the I-T department to the Congress for recovery of outstanding tax of more than Rs 100 crore.
The assessing officer had raised a tax demand of more than Rs 100 crore for the assessment year 2018-19 when the income was assessed to be more than Rs 199 crore.
Political vendetta?
In a press conference on Thursday, senior Congress leaders including party president Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of crippling it ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
“20 per cent of India votes for us and we can’t even pay two rupees for anything. It has been orchestrated to cripple us in the elections,” Rahul Gandhi said.
“We can do no campaign work. Our leaders cannot fly from one part of the country to the other. Forget about flying, they cannot even buy a rail ticket,” Gandhi said about the tax case, which he said had caused all the party’s bank accounts to be frozen.
However, the BJP has refuted charges of political vendetta, saying Congress was guilty of tax evasion and had to face action because of that.
