HYDERABAD: IT major Tech Mahindra, in Telangana High Court, disputed the decisions of the Income Tax Department which disallowed the amended returns submitted for the years when the former chairman of Satyam overstated the revenue and paid taxes on fictitious income.
On behalf of the petitioner, senior counsel Arvind Datar argued that Satyam was bought by Tech Mahindra after great effort on the part of the Indian government. He stated that as soon as the scam broke out, the Central government took control of Satyam within 48 hours and filed many applications with the Company Law Board to allow the recruitment of a strategic investor.
Tech Mahindra, the winning bidder, paid around Rs 3,000 crore for Satyam. In reality, the acquisition approval order was referred to as the “adoption of orphan Satyam” by the business law board. After taking over a firm that was in financial trouble and where the future of 53,000 employees and over 3 lakh investors were on the line, Tech Mahindra saved the company and put it back on track.
On the other hand, the Income Tax department refused to accept the revised returns filed by Tech Mahindra after deleting the fictitious income, to assess the company on correct income. The Company Law Board had, however, allowed Tech Mahindra to restate its accounts for all those years .
The counsel for Tech Mahindra said that the actions taken by the I-T Department were against the efforts of the Indian government, as well as against rulings by the CBI Court, the High Court.He said that the activities of ED and CBDT are in violation of the affidavit submitted by the Secretary of the Union of India’s Ministry of Corporate Affairs. The issue has been adjourned to March 15 for the next hearing.