The Madras High Court has ordered notices to former Chief Minister Jayalalitha’s niece J. Deepa and nephew J. Deepak in connection with three appeals preferred by the income tax department against orders passed by a tribunal in favour of the deceased with respect to her income tax and wealth tax liabilities for the assessment years 1996-97 and 1997-98, respectively.
The Honorable Justices R. Mahadevan and Mohammed Shaffiq also permitted I-T department standing counsel Karthik Ranganathan to take private notices, returnable in two weeks, to the legal heirs.
The department had filed the appeals in 2018, challenging orders passed by the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) in September 2016.
In the meantime, Jayalalithaa died in December 2016. Nevertheless, the appeals were preferred since the Supreme Court had, in February 2017, confirmed the orders passed by a trial court in a disproportionate assets case against her and confirmed the sentence of four years of imprisonment for her close aide and co-accused V.K. Sasikala.
The I-T proceedings had relied heavily upon the facts of the disproportionate assets case.
Even after the filing of the appeals, the department had to wait until Justices N. Kirubakaran (since retired) and Abdul Quddhose of the High Court declared Ms. Deepa and Mr. Deepak as the legal heirs of Jayalalithaa on May 27, 2020. Thereafter, the courts began to function in a restricted manner due to COVID-19 and hence there was a delay in bringing the legal heirs on record.