MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court has held that the income received by a woman whose plot in Thane was acquired by the National High Speed Rail Corporation for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project through private negotiations and sale deed is exempted from income tax. “The corporation had already deducted the TDS— in 2019 —which it ought not to have deducted,’’ said the HC bench of Justices S V Gangapurwala and MG Sewlikar on Thursday.
The HC directed the rail corporation to issue a correction and declare that it has wrongly deducted the tax and said that the Income Tax department shall then process the correction statement for refund of the tax amount. Thane resident Seema Patil had assailed the corporation’s action in deducting income tax at source from the compensation paid for the land acquisition in Bhiwandi, Thane. Her counsel said in such a compulsory acquisition for a public project, the amount received was not taxable as the 2013 Right to Fair Compensation Act carved an exemption. But the rail corporation said it was taxable as it was a private transaction and thus not a compulsory acquisition under the Act.
