Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Sept 16: The High Court today observed that the black money could be used to threaten national security and dismissed a bunch of petitions challenging Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and imposition of Tax Act (the Act of 2015).
Six petitions were dismissed with a Division Bench of Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey and Justice Mohammad Akram Chowdhary holding them “not maintainable” as petitioners had not exhausted the remedy available in the legislation.
“The Act of 2015 provides complete machinery for the person aggrieved of any action taken by the Assessing Officer and the said person could not be permitted to abandon that machinery and to invoke the jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution when he had the adequate remedy open to him by way of an appeal to the Commissioner of Appeals,” the court said.
“The remedy under the statute, however, must be effective and not a mere formality with no substantial relief,” the court said, adding, “In the present case, neither have the Petitioners described the available alternate remedy under the Act of 2015 as ineffectual and non-efficacious while invoking the Writ jurisdiction of this Court nor have they ascribed cogent and satisfactory reasons before the Court so as to enable it to exercise jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution in tune with the facts and circumstances of the case.”
The court said that all the contentions of the petitioners including the issue of jurisdiction, applicability or otherwise of the Act, can very conveniently be dealt with by the Appellate Authority in tune with the mandate of Sections 15 and 17 of the Act of 2015.
The court was hearing as many as six petitions filed by them through senior Supreme Court counsel P Chidambaram who submitted that the action initiated by the ‘assessing authority’ was without jurisdiction as the provisions of the Act of 2015, under the shade and cover of which the entire action has been initiated, are not applicable to the asset subject matter of the case in hand, being created by Non-Resident Indians out of income generated abroad which was not chargeable to tax in India.
On the other hand, counsel representing the respondents had raised objections regarding the maintainability of the petitions.
Meanwhile, the court asked the authorities not to take any punitive action against petitioners in case they file appeal within one month. Earlier before going into the merits of the case, the Court said that the Black Money could be used to threaten national security.
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