Senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi was slapped with an Income Tax penalty of Rs 56.67 crore while his three-year “declared professional income” was increased by Rs 91.95 crore by a Settlement Commission order, which was stayed on 11 September by the Jodhpur high court, reported the Indian Express.
The Income Tax department and Commission questioned Singhvi’s claim of having spent Rs 5 crore on buying laptops for 14 staff or juniors, which would have been equivalent to 1,250 laptops costing Rs 40,000 each, according to the Commission.
Singhvi told the Express that many laptops were more expensive than the Commission assumed, and that many more juniors than just 14 had “come and gone” in three years.
The Commission also held that a claimed expense of Rs 35.98 crore on buying solar panels for Singhvi’s company was “mainly intended at tax evasion by inflating the cost of the panels”, as the vendor apparently admitted that it received only Rs 21 crore from Singhvi, with Rs 10 crore repaid to Singvi as a loan to his sons.
Singhvi told the Express that he was not given a chance to cross-examine that vendor, whose statement was therefore inadmissable, and that depreciation was validly claimed for the panels.
Singhvi had also claimed that in 2012 termites had destroyed expense records kept at his chartered accountants’ office, but the Commission found that a number of his expense claims were non-verifiable, as it was unable to confirm the recipients of 37 out of 91 cheque payments.
In his defence, Singhvi told the Express that he was the “highest or in some years, the second or third highest tax-payer for the last 20 years in my category (legal practitioners)”, and that he had not been given “fundamental natural natural justice”, despite his having approached the Commission on his own, which had now turned it into a “cat and mouse game”.
The Commission also questioned how Singhvi’s declared legal practice only generated 55 per cent of his income, whereas other senior counsel declared that 90 to 95 per cent of their income came from their work as lawyers.
Comments
But i believe he has other sources of income apart from legal practice. Agriculture/Farming,etc!
a. The driver who was bitten by Sirji's dog and then
b. his (driver's) wife gave birth to a sick child and then
c. the driver became very upset and then
d. driver created a digital marvel of a tape which had a person very similar to Sirji, asking a lady lawyer to do certain 'uplifting' things in what appeared to be the SC Library and then
e. Sirji approached Honorable the HC at Delhi with a Suit for restraining order and injunction against the hapless driver and then
f. Many large media houses enjoined themselves as Parties to this Suit by Sirji against his ex-driver whose child was sick because Sirji's dog bit him when the driver's wife was pregnant;
g. Honorable the HC restrained and injuncted the media houses from mentioning even a whisper about the said event and/or activities in the place which looked like Honorable the SC's library (which was named after Sirji's old man, god bless his soul, no less) and then
h. Sirji was out of action for a few days but slowly bounced back to spewing Queen's English all over again and then
i. Termites chewed documents supporting tax filings.
Honorable the HC at Delhi appears to be ready and waiting with soothing orders for Sirji, even as so so many juniors "come and go" and the whole jealous world wants to play "cat and mouse" with Sirji.
Therefore what would be, if the Honorable the HC at Delhi kindly recuses itself from entertaining Sirji's matters.
How can so many miseries befall One Single person, My Lords at the SC - does that not merit a proper impartial investigation.. Does the Nation not want to know?!?
The figures are a penalty of Rs 56 crore, while alleged increase in income by Rs 91 crore.
That's a lot of zeros on 56 and 91, and that in a country where govt is urging poor public to give up few hundreds of LPG subsidy.
Unless there is a provision to put such large scale tax evaders behind the bars, there will be many more termites eating expense bills