Congress gets ₹1,700 crore I-T notice in fresh setback ahead of Lok Sabha elections
The Congress is already facing a funds crunch after Income Tax authorities imposed a penalty of ₹210 crore and froze its funds.
Congress's financial woes have worsened ahead of the Lok Sabha elections with the tax authorities serving the grand old party a notice of around ₹1,700 crore, reported PTI hours after the Delhi high court dismissed the party's petition challenging the reassessment proceedings for four years.
The income tax department served the notice of ₹1,700 crore including penalty and interest for the assessment years 2017-18 and 2020-21, reported PTI citing people aware of the matter.
Congress MP and lawyer Vivek Tankha, who argued the case in the Delhi high court seeking a stay on the reassessment proceedings, claimed that the demand notice was served without assessment orders, reported Times of India. He alleged that the action was aimed at strangling India's main opposition party financially during national elections, according to the report.
On Thursday, a bench of Justices Yashwant Varma and Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav dismissed Congress's plea challenging the initiation of tax reassessment proceedings against it for a period of four years. The two-judge bench said the pleas were dismissed in terms of its earlier decision refusing to interfere with the opening of reassessment for another period.
The present matter pertains to assessment years 2017 to 2021.
The latest income tax notice is part of a series of financial setbacks to Congress including the high court's refusal to stay reassessment proceedings pertaining to assessment years 2014-15 to 2016-17. The court said that the tax authority had prima facie collated "substantial and concrete" evidence warranting further scrutiny and examination.
The bench specifically mentioned what it said appeared to be “unaccounted transfers” in three of these years by Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited (MEIL), a company that has been in the news after Electoral Bond data released by SBI showed that it was the biggest donor to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), contributing ₹584 crore to the party between April 16, 2019, and October 13, 2023.
On March 13, the court rejected the Congress’s plea appealing an order of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal which had rejected its plea seeking a stay on a demand notice for around ₹105 crore issued by the tax department.
The Congress has alleged that the action by tax authorities is politically motivated and aimed at crippling the party financially ahead of the crucial parliamentary elections.
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