HYDERABAD: In a relief to the Telangana State Beverages Corporation Limited, the High Court on Wednesday granted permission for sale of liquor from TSBCL depots to retail outlets by granting interim stay on the attachment notice served by the income tax department.
A division bench comprising chief justice KJ Sengupta and justice PV Sanjay Kumar was dealing with a plea moved as a lunch motion by the TSBCL challenging the attachment notice of the IT department.
Telangana advocate-general K Ramakrishna Reddy said TSBCL was not an assessor and no notice was served on it. The IT department has served the notice to the AP Beverages Corporation Limited seeking tax dues of Rs 1,468.63 crore for the financial years 2012-13 and 2013-14 when the TSBCL was not in existence. Yet, the IT authorities stopped the sales from depots situated within the purview of TSBCL, the AG pointed out.
Justice Sengupta asked the counsel representing the income tax department how it would get tax dues if the sales were stopped. Let them allow to sell their stocks so that the department would be able to collect tax, he said.
While granting an interim stay, the bench directed the TSBCL to supply the list of stocks available at the depots to the IT department and then sell the stocks while remitting the money realised into a separate account after deducting the necessary expenditure.
The bench also directed the corporation to submit all the sale proceedings to the court by Tuesday to take an appropriate decision on the issue and adjourned the case to March 10.
