The tax authorities have served the grand old party with a notice worth approximately ₹1,700 crore, adding to Congress’s financial troubles ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. PTI published this information after the Delhi High Court rejected the party’s appeal to contest the reassessment processes for four years.
According to PTI, which cited persons who know the situation, the income tax department sent a notice for ₹1,700 crore, including penalty and interest, for the assessment years 2017–18 and 2020–21.
According to the Times of India, Congress MP and attorney Vivek Tankha contended that the demand notice was given without assessment orders when he argued the case before the Delhi High Court seeking a stay on the reassessment proceedings. According to the report, he claimed that the purpose of the move was to financially cripple the main opposition party in India during the national elections.
On Thursday, a bench of Justices Yashwant Varma and Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav rejected Congress’s appeal, objecting to filing a four-year tax reassessment against the party. The two-judge bench declared that the requests were rejected in accordance with its previous ruling that they would not impede the start of a reevaluation for an additional time.
This current issue concerns the evaluation years 2017 through 2021.
The high court’s decision to not postpone the reassessment proceedings for assessment years 2014–15 through 2016–17 is among the financial setbacks that Congress has experienced, including the receipt of the most recent income tax notice. According to the court, the tax authorities had ostensibly gathered “substantial and concrete” information that called for additional investigation and review.
The Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited (MEIL), which has been in the news since SBI’s release of Electoral Bond data revealed that it was the largest donor to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), contributing ₹584 crore between April 16, 2019, and October 13, 2023, was explicitly mentioned by the bench as having made what it said appeared to be “unaccounted transfers” in three of these years.
On March 13, the court denied Congress’s appeal of an Income Tax Appellate Tribunal ruling that had denied the Congress’s request for a stay on a tax department demand letter for almost ₹105 crore.
The Congress has claimed that the tax authorities’ move is politically motivated and intended to ruin the party financially before the critical parliamentary elections.