Delhi High Court rejects Congress’ plea against income tax reassessment proceedings
The court said that the party’s petition was within the ambit of the recent judgement it had pronounced on other assessment years.
The Delhi High Court on Thursday rejected petitions filed by the Congress challenging the income tax reassessment proceedings initiated against it by the Income Tax Department for the financial years 2017-’18 to 2020-’21, Bar and Bench reported.
A bench of Justices Yashwant Varma and Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, while dismissing the petitions, said that it was within the ambit of the recent judgement pronounced by the court on certain other assessment years.
On March 22, the bench had dismissed the Congress’ petitions against the income tax reassessment proceedings for the financial years 2014-’15, 2015-’16 and 2016-’17.
The court had said that the Income Tax Department “appears to have collated substantial and concrete evidence warranting further scrutiny and examination” under the Income Tax Act.
It had also remarked that the Congress had approached it at the “proverbial fag end of the proceedings”. The Income Tax Department’s reassessment is scheduled to be completed by March 31.
On March 21, the party said that the Income Tax Department had frozen all its bank accounts ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had said that the silence of institutions such as the judiciary and the Election Commission on the department’s action against its bank accounts showed that there was “no democracy in India today”.
