Shivangi Prakash –
Published on: August 31, 2021, at 11:10 IST
The Madras High Court stayed the Attachment Order, restricting withdrawal of Fixed Deposits as Income Tax Department not given a reasonable time to file a Counter-Affidavit.
The Writ Petitions are still ongoing, and the Revenue’s request for time to file a Counter Affidavit was granted by the learned Single Bench, and the matter was scheduled to be heard on June 2, 2021.
The Writ Petitions challenged the decisions of attachment of properties made under Section 132(9B) of the Income Tax Act, 1961.
The interim ruling ensures that the two writ petitioners, who have filed three writ petitions, will be successful.
The Single Bench has found that the provisional attachment of property contemplated under Section 132(9B) is of property ‘relating to the assessee’ and that the two Petitioners have not even been subjected to search and seizure under Section 132 of the Act, and thus held there is no justifiable reason for provisional attachment of their assets.
The Additional Solicitor General argued that the appellant was not given a reasonable chance to present the facts in the form of a counter-affidavit, and the learned counsel cited the order of the learned judge to support this claim.
The Division Bench of Justice T.S.Sivangananam and Justice Sathi Kumar Sukumara Kurup observed that releasing the attachment immediately would equate to accepting the writ petition itself because the order of attachment under Section 132(9B) of the Act was the subject of the writ case.
If the attachment order is withdrawn, the respondent/assessee will receive all of the relief sought in the main writ case.
As a result, the Court ordered that the 9 Fixed Deposits remain in the Indian Bank, and that the Respondents/Writ Petitioners are prohibited from withdrawing the said amount or liquidating the Fixed Deposits, and that the Indian Bank, Thousand Lights Branch, await the orders in the main Writ Petitions.
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