The Madras High Court on Tuesday refused to quash a criminal complaint lodged by the Income Tax department against DMK MP D.M. Kathir Anand before a Judicial Magistrate in Vellore in 2016 for having allegedly not filed his returns for the assessment year 2013-14 and the consequent charge of evasion of tax.
Justice N. Anand Venkatesh dismissed the MP’s quash petition pending in the High Court since 2017 and held that the presumption of culpable state of mind under Section 278E of the Income Tax Act could be overturned by the petitioner only by facing the trial proceedings to establish his innocence.
He further stated that it would be beyond the jurisdiction of the High Court, under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, to quash the proceedings by disregarding the statutory presumption. The MP could not also escape from prosecution by having filed the returns during the extended period, he added.
Explaining the facts of the case, M. Sheela, Special Public Prosecutor for the Income Tax department, told the court that the MP was mandated under Section 139(1) of the I-T Act to file his returns on income, along with the audit report, for the financial year 2012-13 corresponding to the assessment year 2013-14.
As per the statutory requirement, the MP ought to have filed the returns on or before September 30, 2013. However, he filed the returns belatedly on March 19, 2015 by taking advantage of Section 139(4) of the Act which provides for such belated filing. In the returns, he had assessed his tax liability to be ₹1.04 crore.
Having filed such returns, the MP should have paid the self assessed tax at least on the day of filing of returns. Instead, he discharged his liabilities only after the Assessing Officer issued a show cause notice in March 2016 seeking explanation as to why criminal proceedings should not be initiated against him.
Therefore, the I-T department had initiated the criminal proceedings under Sections 276CC (failure to file return of income) and 276C(2) (wilful attempt to evade payment of tax) of the Act, the SPP said.
