Temporary stay on show-cause notice to Anil Ambani under Black Money Act to continue: Bombay HC
Mumbai (PTI): The Bombay High Court on Wednesday continued till further orders an interim stay on show-cause notice and penalty demand issued to industrialist Anil Ambani by the Income Tax department under the Black Money Act.
A division bench of Justices Gautam Patel and Neela Gokhale posted Ambani's petition challenging the notice and penalty demand for hearing on April 28, and gave time to the IT department to file its reply.
The HC had in September 2022 granted an interim stay to the show-cause notice pending hearing.
In March this year, Ambani's lawyer Rafique Dada informed the court that the department later also issued a penalty demand notice to his client.
The court then granted interim stay to the demand notice too.
On Wednesday, when the petition came up for hearing, advocate Akhileshwar Sharma, appearing for the IT department, sought two weeks to file a "comprehensive affidavit" in response to the amended petition.
"The petition has been amended adding some more IT officials as respondents and (the petitioner) has also annexed certain new documents. The department wants time to file a comprehensive affidavit," Sharma said.
The court directed that the affidavit be filed by April 21.
"The petition shall be listed for hearing on April 28. The interim orders passed earlier -- stay on the show-cause notice and the penalty demand -- shall continue till further orders," the bench said.
The IT department issued a notice to Anil Ambani on August 8, 2022, for allegedly evading Rs 420 crore in taxes on undisclosed funds of more than Rs 814 crore held in two Swiss bank accounts.
The industrialist was liable to be prosecuted under Sections 50 and 51 of the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) Imposition of Tax Act of 2015 which prescribes a maximum sentence of 10 years with fine, the IT notice said.
The department charged Ambani with "wilful" evasion, saying he "intentionally" did not disclose his foreign bank account details and financial interests.
Ambani in his petition claimed that the Black Money Act was enacted in 2015 and the alleged transactions were of assessment years 2006-2007 and 2010-2011.
The provisions of the Act cannot have retrospective effect, he argued.
According to the IT department's notice, Ambani was an "economic contributor as well as beneficial owner" of Bahamas-based "Diamond Trust" and British Virgin Islands-incorporated Northern Atlantic Trading Unlimited (NATU).
He "failed to disclose" these foreign assets in his income tax return (ITR) filings and hence violated the Black Money Act, it said.
The act was brought in by the Narendra Modi government soon after it came to power in 2014.
IT officials assessed the total value of undisclosed funds in the two Swiss Bank accounts at Rs 8,14,27,95,784 (Rs 814 crore) and tax payable on this amount at Rs 4,20,29,04,040 (Rs 420 crore).
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2 Israeli airstrikes hit Syria's capital and suburb, killing 15 people, Syrian state media says
Damascus, Nov 14: Israel carried out at least two airstrikes on a western neighbourhood of Damascus and one of the capital's suburbs on Thursday, killing at least 15 people and wounding another 16, Syria's state news agency said.
The airstrikes on the Mazzeh neighbourhood in Damascus and the suburb of Qudsaya, northwest of the capital, struck two buildings, the SANA news agency said. An Associated Press journalist at the scene in Mazzeh said that a five-story building was damaged by a missile that hit the basement.
The Israeli military said it had hit infrastructure sites and command centres of the Islamic Jihad group in Syria, and had “inflicted significant damage to the organisation's command centre and to its operatives”.
The airstrikes in Damascus and the nearby suburb came shortly before Ali Larijani, an adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei, was scheduled to meet in the Syrian capital with representatives of Palestinian factions at the Iranian Embassy in Mazzeh.
The Israeli military said Islamic Jihad had participated alongside Hamas, the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip, in the Oct 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and saw 250 others abducted into Gaza.
The military “will continue to operate against the Islamic Jihad organisation wherever necessary,” it said.
Israel's retaliation to the Oct 7 attack and the ensuing Israel-Hamas war has spilled into the wider region, affecting Lebanon, Syria and leading to strikes between Israel and Iran. The war has left much of Gaza in ruins and has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to local health authorities who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
An official with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Group said that the strike in Mazzeh targeted one of their offices, and that several members of the group were killed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media.
Syria's state news agency SANA said that the country's air defences were activated against a “hostile target” south of the central city of Homs. It gave no further details.
Tehran has been a main backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad's government since a 2011 uprising turned into a full-blown civil war and has played an instrumental role in turning the tide of the conflict in his favor.
Iran has sent scores of military advisers and thousands of Iran-backed fighters from around the Middle East to Syria to fight on Assad's side. Tehran has also been an economic lifeline for Assad, sending fuel and credit lines worth billions of dollars.
Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria targeting members of neighbouring Lebanon's Hezbollah and officials from Iranian-backed groups.
Hezbollah began firing into Israel on Oct 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. Since then, more than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 14,200 wounded, the country's Health Ministry reported. In Israel, 76 people have been killed, including 31 soldiers.
Lebanon's state media said an Israeli airstrike Thursday hit a building in Baalbek city in eastern Lebanon, killing at least nine people and wounding five others.
The strike on Baalbek came without warning. The Israeli military did not immediately comment and the target was not clear.
Israeli warplanes intensified airstrikes on Thursday, targeting various areas in southern and eastern Lebanon, including the outskirts of the southern port city of Tyre city and the Nabatieh province, the National News Agency said.
Throughout the day, sporadic airstrikes targeted Beirut's southern suburbs in a clear uptick in attacks on the area over the past two days, with the Israeli army issuing evacuation warnings for several locations and buildings in the suburbs.
The Israeli military said it carried out strikes on Hezbollah targets in the Dahiyeh area, including weapons storage facilities and command centres.
Lebanon's Health Ministry said the death toll in Lebanon since the war began on Oct 8, 2023 has reached 3,365 while those wounded are 14,344. Nearly 1.2 million people have been displaced.
Before the war intensified on Sept 23, Hezbollah said it had lost nearly 500 members but the group has stopped releasing statements about their killed fighters since.
United Nations peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix, speaking during a visit to Lebanon, said the UN remains committed to keeping its peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, in place in all of its positions in southern Lebanon, despite intense ongoing battles between Israeli forces and Hezbollah group.
UNIFIL has continued to monitor the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah across the boundary known as the Blue Line despite Israeli calls for peacekeepers to pull back five km (three miles) from the border. UNIFIL has accused Israel of deliberately destroying observation equipment, and 13 peacekeepers have been injured in the fighting.
Lacroix visited some of the wounded peacekeepers during his trip.
UNIFIL forces “continue to be deployed in all the positions, and we think it is very important to preserve that presence everywhere,” LaCroix said. ”...Had we vacated some of the positions, then that would have certainly jeopardised the capacity for UNIFIL to continue today, but probably even more importantly, that would have significantly undermined the capacity for UNIFIL to play a role, tomorrow, when the cessation of hostilities takes place - hopefully sooner than later.”
Lacroix said there is still a “large consensus that resolution 1701 remains the critical framework for settlement,” referring to the UN Security Council resolution that ended the brutal monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, but which has never been fully implemented by either party.
