PC kin black money case: Orders reserved

The division bench, comprising Justice S Manikumar and Justice Subramonium Prasad, reserved its orders without mentioning a date after hearing extensive arguments from Senior Counsel Gopal Subramaniam appearing for the petitioner and Additional Solicitor General of India (ASG) G Rajagopalan for the Income Tax department.

ASG argued that the failure to disclose the asset obtained abroad in the original I-T returns under 139(1) of the I-T Act was enough to construe an offence since the revised return was only filed because a notice was issued under section 10 of the Act. However, Gopal Subramanium argued that once the revised return under 139(5) was filed, that must be assessed first before launching prosecution. He argued that there was no reason to initiate prosecution as the assesses had initially submitted what they were required to, but for clarification they submitted the revised return as well.

As per the case, Chidambaram’s family failed to disclose a property they jointly own in Cambridge, UK worth Rs 5.37 crore in their I-T returns, which amounted to offence under the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act.

With a single judge refusing to offer any relief, the family moved an appeal. The bench during its previous hearing offered temporary relief by exempting their appearance before a special court for economic offences until September 14.