NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court will hear the pleas of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday against the reopening of their tax assessments regarding the National Herald transactions.
Sonia on Monday moved the HC challenging the income tax department’s notice on re-opening of the assessment. The plea is listed for hearing before a bench of Justice S Ravindra Bhat and Justice A K Chawla, which had on August 8 refused to grant interim relief to Rahul and had posted his petition for Tuesday.
The Gandhis are opposing the I-T department move to reopen the tax assessment for the year 2011-12 related to the transactions between National Herald and Young Indian Pvt Ltd. Rahul and Sonia are major stakeholders in Young Indian, which had acquired Associated Journals Limited, publishers of the National Herald newspaper. Representing the I-T department, Additional Solicitor General A Tushar Mehta argued that the tax assessment of Rahul had been reopened because he had suppressed the information that he was a director in Young Indian since 2010.
As per the department, Rahul’s shares in the Young Indian would lead him to have an income of Rs 154 crore and not `68 lakh, as was assessed earlier. Following a December 27, 2017, notice issued by the I-T department, the court had in March directed Young Indian to deposit `10 crore in the `249.15 crore income tax proceedings against the firm.