Will not use force to subdue the Congress in light of the Lok Sabha elections: IT department notifies SC

In light of the Lok Sabha elections, the Income Tax (IT) department informed the Supreme Court (SC) on Monday that it will not use coercion to stop the Congress from enforcing tax demand notifications of Rs 3,500 crore.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, speaking on behalf of the I-T department, said before a panel of Justices B. V. Nagarathna and Augustine George Masih that no hasty decisions would be made until the issue was finally decided.

The Congress’s appeal against the tax demand notifications was posted by the bench for July.

Mehta said at the beginning, “I want to make a statement about this. We won’t use coercion to target the Congress since it is a political party and elections are now underway.”

He said that all rights and disputes should be left open and that the department is not making any comments on the issue’s merits.

Approving the gesture, senior counsel Abhishek Singhvi, speaking on behalf of the Congress, called it “gracious” and said that all demand letters for various years totaling over Rs 3,500 crore had been given in March and earlier.

The Congress demanded Rs 1,745 crore in taxes for the assessment years 2014–15 through 2016–17, citing new letters from the Income Tax department that it received on Sunday. The Income Tax authorities had said that they were seeking a total of Rs 3,567 crore from the party with their most recent notification.

The party said on Friday that it had received demands for payment of around Rs 1,823 crore from the IT department. A tax claim for prior years has already resulted in the tax authorities taking out Rs 135 crore from the party’s coffers.