SC notice to Virbhadra on I-T Dept’s appeal

R Sedhuraman

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, March 30

The Supreme Court (SC) today issued a notice to Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh on an appeal by the state Income Tax Commissioner pleading for the restoration of the transfer of investigation into alleged tax evasion by him from Shimla to Chandigarh.

A Bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra and Prafulla C Pant directed Virbhadra to file his response to the plea within two weeks and granted a week’s time thereafter to the department to submit its rejoinder.

The department had challenged the HP High Court’s ruling quashing the transfer order shifting the investigation from Shimla to Chandigarh on July 14, 2014.

Appearing for the department, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said the probe had been transferred as 19 persons were involved in the case, eight of whom were in Delhi and 10 in Shimla.

A probe by an assessing officer at a centralised office would ensure better coordination for assessing the income, he pleaded.

While the HP HC quashed the order on December 18, 2014, the Delhi HC passed a similar order on March 19, 2015, on an appeal by some of the persons involved in inter-linked cases, the AG said.

Arguing for Virbhadra, senior advocate Kapil Sibal said the High Court had granted liberty to the department for issuing fresh notice to his client in the case.

On this basis, the department had already issued a fresh notice to Virbhadra and as such there was no need for the government to come to the SC challenging the HC ruling, he said.

Further, since the IT Department had a centralised adjudication centre in Shimla also, there was no need for transferring the investigation to any other place, Sibal and AAG Suryanarayana Singh pleaded.

Rohatgi, however, contended that the Section 127, IT Act, had empowered the department to transfer the IT assessment from one assessing officer to the other.

At this, the Bench said it would go into the scope and ambit of this Section.

Apart from Virbhadra, others involved in the inter-linked IT cases are his wife Pratibha Singh, son Vikramaditya Singh, daughter Aprajita Kumari and one Anand Chauhan (caretaker of Virbhadra’s orchards) and Chunni Lal Chauhan (proprietor of Universal Apples).

The SC also passed a similar order on the department’s appeal pertaining to Anand Chauhan.

The case is about Virbhadra’s revised return showing a huge increase in the income from agriculture to justify the purchase of insurance policies.