I-T told not to initiate recovery proceedings against Vellore MP

Justice C Saravanan granted the interim injunction on Anand’s two writ petitions seeking direction to the I-T department to withdraw its order passed under Section 144A of the IT Act. The judge posted the two matters to January 3, after asking the department to file a counter.

Kathir Anand submitted through his counsel R Sivaraman that an Assistant Commissioner of I-T had issued a show-cause notice on September 8 asking why the department should not consider the Rs 11.48 crore as his income.

He filed an application before the Additional Commissioner seeking to review the notice, which, however, was rejected without conducting an independent inquiry to find out whether the assessing officer was proceeding in the right direction, he said.

“The petitioner is in no way connected with the people from whom the I-T department had unearthed the cash,” Sivaraman submitted.

I-T standing counsel ANR Jaya Prathap argued that the application was rejected based on the materials and evidence. “The Additional Commissioner cannot deviate from the search and seizures conducted by the investigation wing. The official had simply relied upon the materials available in the search files,” he submitted, adding that more details would be revealed through the counter affidavit.

The matter pertains to the seizure of Rs 11.48 crore by the I-T department from a house belonging to Damodaran and Vimala, a couple from Vellore, during the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Following this, the Election Commission had rescinded the polls for the Vellore constituency. Vimala’s brother Srinivasan gave a deposition before the I-T department stating that the recovered money was his.