The Election Commission (EC) has sought withdrawal of tax exemption benefits to ten political parties from the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) on the grounds that they failed to submit their mandatory expenditure contribution reports on time to the poll body.
The EC, in its latest communication, has asked the Central Board of Direct Taxes to take action against the defaulting parties under provisions of Section 29C (Declaration of donation received by the political parties) of the Representation of the People Act in consonance with I-T laws.
The EC has identified the ten parties as Nagrik Ekta Party, Dharamrajya Paksh, Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist), Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party, Sunder Samaj Party, Loktantrik Manavtawadi Party, Rastriya Mahila Janshakti Party (RMJP) and the Indian People Green Party as the defaulters in filing their contribution and donation receipt reports for the financial year 2012-13.
The stipulated time limit for this exercise was September 30, 2013 but all these parties defaulted in submitting the records to EC by an average of one-five months while one party (RMJP) did it within the time limit but the poll body found some discrepancies in their records and hence referred it to the CBDT.
In case of two other parties like Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), the EC said, that its contribution records for fiscals 2006 to 2012 were received only on December 16 last year, which is well beyond the deadline.
Also, the Rashtriya Nowjawan Dal too filed its reports for fiscals 2010-11 and 2011-12 fiscal on November 19, 2013 to the EC.