CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Tuesday dismissed petitions of Congress MP Karti P Chidambaram and his wife Srinidhi Chidambaram in an alleged tax evasion case, to the tune of Rs 8 crore. The Sivaganga MP and his wife had challenged transfer of the case from Economic Offences Court to the Special Court for trial of MPs/MLAs. The duo had also sought discharge from the case filed by the Income Tax Department.
Justice M Sundar dismissed both the pleas on Tuesday after mammoth arguments on the petitions came to an end in January. According to special public prosecutor M Sheela, Karti received Rs 6.38 crore in cash while his wife received Rs 1.35 crore through the sale of land near Muthukkadu in Chennai. However, they failed to disclose the entire transaction during the assessment years and neither paid any taxes to it, she argued.
The petitioners argued that they were neither MPs or MLAs on the date of the alleged offence. Dismissing this, the High Court observed, “Since the Supreme Court has directed for transfer of all such pending cases to special courts, this argument fails. Likewise, the argument that only one of the petitioners has become an MP is of no avail to the petitioners, as the Supreme Court has directed transfer of all cases involving sitting and former elected representatives.”
On January 7, the special court had dismissed the discharge application moved by the duo and directed the prosecution to proceed with framing of charges against the accused. Subsequently, Karti moved the High Court challenging the dismissal and had obtained an interim stay. The counsel for petitioners submitted that the complaints were not lodged based on tax assessments but based on the searches made in a company called Advantage Strategic Consulting Pvt. Ltd in which Karti is a director.
Citing position of the prosecutors that complaints are not based on assessments and that they are based on search/seizure, the Court said it was appropriate to not discuss the same in great length.
“This leaves us with the point regarding prosecution being launched on the basis of the statement of third parties,” observed the Court. Regarding the corroboration between soft copies recovered from the company in which one of the petitioners is a director, the Court observed, “Besides being a matter for trial, it puts to rest the ground that prosecution is based solely on statements of third parties (Purchaser Company).” Therefore, it cannot be said by petitioners that prosecution has been launched solely based on the statement made by some third parties, the Court further said.
The Deputy Director of I-T department, Chennai had filed a complaint on September 12, 2018 against the petitioners before the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court-II (Economic Offences) for offences under sections 276 c (1) and 277 of the IT Act. Subsequently, the case was transferred to the Special court.