Luthra & Luthra is defending Finnish cellular giant Nokia’s Indian subsidiary Nokia India in its Madras high court writ contesting the Tamil Nadu VAT department’s claim and in the Supreme Court against a Rs 2,250 crore sales tax guarantee.

Luthra Delhi partner Vikas Srivastava, having briefed senior counsel Arvind Dattar in Chennai, is acting on all advisory and direct and indirect tax litigation for Nokia, and Delhi partner Sanjeev Sachdeva is acting on indirect tax issues.

It is understood that Srivastava eventually argued himself for Nokia in the Madras high court as well as in the Supreme Court.

The SC had on 14 March dismissed Nokia’s appeal against the Delhi HC order asking for Rs 2,250 crore ($368m) to be deposited in an escrow guarantee against the tax department’s claim against it over the proceeds from the sale of its factory in India to Microsoft.

Barely a week later, the Tamil Nadu VAT department then slapped a demand notice of Rs 2,400 crore on Nokia claiming that it was selling handsets in the domestic market instead of exporting them, whereas only exports are exempt from VAT.

It is understood that the Madras HC has asked the company to file all of its export documents; the company has filed part of the documents because filing all would mean turning over 3 million documents to the Tamil Nadu HC.

The company has requested for time to file all documents and in the meanwhile to offer sample checks.

Photo by Pete