Granting relief to Ex-Union Minister P. Chidambaram, the Madras High Court has quashed a re-assessment order for the year 2011-12 passed against him by the Revenue suspecting escapement of tax.
Justice T S Sivagnanam granted an interim relief on a petition filed by Chidambaram and directed the income tax authorities to file their counter within six weeks. The matter posted to July 16th for further hearing.
The judge had quashed similar I-T notices issued to Chidambaram pertaining to the assessment years 2009-10 and 2010-11, in November last year and January this year.
When the current petition came up for hearing, Justice Sivagnanam noted that the factual issue was identical to that of the earlier assessment years. On the issue of reopening of assessment for 2009-10 and 2010-11, the court was convinced that it was not justified and had quashed the notices allowing the Congress leader’s plea.
Chidambaram in his petition submitted that he had been selling raw coffee grown in his estate in Karnataka without curing and has been claiming exemption of the sale proceeds as agricultural income. Accordingly, for the assessment year 2011-12, he had claimed exemption of Rs 43.37 lakh as agricultural income under section 10(1) of Income Tax Act.
However, the I-T department issued a notice dated March 27, 2018 under section 148 of the Income Tax Act stating that it had reason to believe that income chargeable to tax for the AY 2011-12 had escaped assessment.
