CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Friday quashed the Income-Tax proceedings initiated against senior Congress leader and former Union Minister P Chidambaram’s son Karti Chidambaram and his wife Srinidhi in a case relating to the alleged non-disclosure of income for the 2015-16 fiscal and tax evasion.
Allowing a review petition filed by the accused, Mr Justice N Satishkumar held that the authority, who had sanctioned the prosecution proceedings, has no powers.
Earlier, Mr Justice M Sundar of High court dismissed the petitions filed by Karti and his wife following which they filed a review plea.
They had moved the High Court after Special Court Judge D Lingeswaran dismissed their discharge petitions on the ground that there were adequate grounds to presume the accused has committed offences, while finding merit in the evidence submitted by the prosecution.
Rejecting the plea of the accused that hard drives could not be admitted as evidence, the Judge said it was clear that the hard drives in question were seized from Chess Global Advisory Services Services and the seized hard drives were sealed properly and they were under custody.
After the Judge directed the prosecution to go ahead with the framing of charges in January this year, they moved the High court.
The proseuction case was that Karti, now a Lok Sabha MP from Sivaganga, had received Rs 6.38 crore in cash and his wife Rs 1.35 crore in cash in that financial year and it came to light when Income-Tax officials had conducted inquiries with employees of Agni Estates Foundation, the firm which purchased land belonging to them near Muttukadu.
On December one, 2015, the Enforcement Directorate and IT sleuths searched the premises of Advantage and Chess Global and other places with which Mr Karti was associated, and seized electronic materials containing evidence on the money transaction.
The ED and IT department had submitted this to the court in December 2018 along with a printout of documents, which the Court had reviewed recently.
The IT department had filed a complaint on September 12, 2018 against them before the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court-II (Economic Offences) for offences under sections 276c(1) and 277 of the I-T Act and the case was later transferred to the special court.(AGENCIES)
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