Escaped income by the Congress is more than ₹520 crore: IT Department tells Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday reserved its verdict on the plea filed by Indian National Congress (INC) against Income Tax Department (IT Department) decision to initiate tax reassessment proceedings against the political party..Congress party's three petitions were listed today. They concerned IT Department's reassessment proceedings for the years 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17. A Division Bench of Justices Yashwant Varma and Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav heard the matter and hinted that the order will be out in a day or two. .Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi appeared for Congress party and said that the reassessment proceedings are barred by limitation and are being done in violation of the provisions of the Income Tax Act. Advocate Zoheb Hossain appeared for the IT department and stated that there has been no violation of the statutory provisions and that as per the material recovered, the escaped income by the Congress is more than ₹520 crore. .A total of seven years' reassessment proceedings have started against Congress. The Court today was seized of the opposition party's plea against tax reassessment of three years. The party's plea against reassessment of four other years is likely to come up for hearing on March 21. .Notably, on March 13, the High Court had rejected a plea filed by the Congress party against an order of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) rejecting its plea for stay on the demand notice issued by Income Tax (IT) department for recovery of nearly ₹105 crores in outstanding taxes.A division bench of Justices Yashwant Varma and Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav said there was no reason to interfere with the ITAT order.As per the statement made in Court, the total amount with interest is now nearly ₹135 crores.However, the High Court allowed Congress to move a fresh application for a stay before the ITAT, bearing in mind the developments that have occurred in the meanwhile including that an amount of ₹65.94 crores was recovered from the party.