National Herald case: SC to hear Sonia, Rahul's pleas challenging Income Tax assessment

The Delhi High Court had earlier refused to give the Gandhis any relief in a case concerning their income tax assessments for 2011-12.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Tuesday the petitions filed by Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia challenging the Delhi High Court order refusing to give them relief in a case of re-opening of their tax assessments for 2011-12.

A bench of Justices AK Sikri and S Abdul Nazeer is slated to hear the appeals filed by Rahul, Sonia and veteran Congress leader Oscar Fernandes, who have challenged the September 10 verdict of the high court.

Income Tax department has already filed a caveat in the apex court that it should be heard in case an appeal is filed against the high court order.

A caveat is a legal procedure by which an application is filed by any party to the litigation to pre-empt an ex-parte order.

On September 10, the Gandhis had failed to get any relief from the High Court which dismissed their challenge on reopening of their tax assessments for 2011-12.

Denial of any relief by the high court had paved the way for the Income Tax Department to scrutinise Congress leaders records for the assessment year 2011-12.

"...The assessees' rights to urge them are reserved in the income tax proceedings," the high court said, while "dismissing" the three separate petitions filed by the Gandhis and Fernandes, which were decided through a common order.

The income tax probe against the Congress leaders has arisen from the investigation into the private criminal complaint filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy before a trial court in connection with the National Herald case, in which the trio is out on bail.

Sonia and Rahul were granted bail in the case by the trial court on December 19, 2015.

A tax evasion petition (TEP) was also addressed to the Finance Minister by Swamy.

In the complaint before the trial court, Sonia, Rahul and others have been accused of conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds by paying just Rs 50 lakh, through which Young Indian (YI), the not-for-profit organisation, had obtained the right to recover Rs 90.25 crore that the Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) owed to the Congress party.

It was alleged that YI, which was incorporated in November 2010 with a capital of Rs 50 lakh, had acquired almost all shareholdings of the AJL, which was running the National Herald newspaper.

In this process, YI had also acquired AJL's debt of Rs 90 crore.

The tax department had said the shares Rahul has in YI would lead him to have an income of Rs 154 crore and not about Rs 68 lakh, as was assessed earlier.

It has already issued a demand notice for Rs 249.15 crore to YI for the assessment year 2011-12.

The department's move followed its probe on a complaint alleging that the Gandhis had misappropriated AJL's assets while transferring their shares to the newly formed YI.

The high court had noted in its order that the premise of the reassessment notices was that the non-disclosure of the taxing event-- allotment of shares of YI-- deprived the assessing officer of the opportunity to look into the records.

It had said that in Rahul's case, the non-disclosure of share acquisition constituted tangible material justifying reassessment.

In case of Sonia and Oscar, the bench said returns filed by them were processed under Section 143(1) of the Income Tax Act, which pertains to 'Notice or intimation', and are not treated as "assessments".