The Madras High Court has stayed the Special Court hearing in the Tax Evasion case against Karti Chidambaram and his wife Srinidhi Karti Chidambaram.
The Court on Tuesday stayed all further proceedings in an alleged tax evasion case prosecuted by the Income Tax department.
The issue was related to payment of tax following the sale of a 1.16-acre property at Muttukadu in March 2015. Income Tax officials had claimed that receipt of a cheque for ₹3.65 crores alone was shown as sale consideration, and tax was not paid for cash receipt of another ₹1.35 crore.
Initially, the Income Tax department had initiated prosecution before an Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate court, designated to hear cases related to economic offenses, at Egmore here. However, after Mr. Karti Chidambaram became an MP in May 2019, the High Court Registry transferred the case to the special court for legislators.
Challenging such transfer, the petitioners claimed that it was impermissible in law to transfer a case from a Magistrate court to a Court of Sessions.
A Single Judge bench of Justice M. Sundar granted the interim stay till January 27 when he would take up for final hearing a couple of petitions filed by the MP and his wife in August last questioning the jurisdiction of the special court to conduct trial and also two other petitions filed recently to quash the entire I-T proceedings.
