Court convicts Romesh Sharma for tax evasion

Sharma was convicted for evading tax and not clearing income tax dues amounting to Rs 50 crore.

A city court hearing an income tax evasion case against underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's frontman, Romesh Sharma, on Friday sought to link suicides by debt-ridden farmers to poor recovery of government dues from tax defaulters.

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"It is really hard to see a situation where four of the world's 10 richest people are Indians and yet lakhs of farmers have killed themselves as they see no hope in their future. If the government through its officers made policies and directly intervened in tax matters then the scenario might have changed," the ACMM Kanwaljeet Arora said convicting Sharma for not paying Rs 50 crore dues to I-T department.

Sharma was convicted for evading tax and not clearing income tax dues amounting to Rs 50 crore. Sharma had not deposited tax of Rs four crores (now the amounting to Rs 50 crore) after holding him guilty under section 276-C (2) and 277 of the Income Tax Act.

The quantum of sentence against Sharma would pronounce pronounced on Monday. H A Siddiquie, former Assistant Commissioner of Income Tax office (ITO) who had filed the three complainants in the case, stated that Sharma given several occasions to deposit the dues.

The ITO had issued three notices for the assessment year 1987-88, 1988-89 and 1989-90 for paying the tax amount of Rs two crore 47 lakhs, Rs 21 lakhs and Rs 25 lakhs, respectively, but Sharma failed to pay these amounts.