As the Delhi High Court declined to stay the income tax proceedings against Young Indian Pvt Ltd in the National Herald case, both the BJP and the Congress claimed that “justice” is in their favour.
Congress spokesperson and the counsel for Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the case, Abhishek Singhvi, accused the Centre of feeding misinformation to the media about the proceedings of the case.
He said the Centre’s agencies were circulating unsigned notes of briefing to the media on the matter. “This shows the unambiguous, clear insecurity and vindictive approach,” Singhvi said.
He said the Income Tax department sent a notice to Young India for reopening assessment of six years when no income tax proceedings were pending. He said he approached the court on behalf of the company arguing that the IT Department had no jurisdiction to issue such a notice.
“Now the Order in the course of proceedings in the High Court is that all the points which we raised in the writ can be raised by Young India (the company) before the IT Department, including the point that the Department had no reason to reopen such a case,” Singhvi said.
He said the Centre’s agencies told the media to publish that the order says Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have been asked to appear. “Is this fair reporting, is this fair for the Government agencies?” he asked.
Cooperate with probe: BJPThe BJP, on the other hand, asked the first family members of the Congress to cooperate with the IT Department. Senior BJP leader and Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said National Herald, a Congress-run newspaper, had become a sort of “family concern”, something which had never happened during Jawaharlal Nehru’s time.
“Their (Gandhis) lawyer says they will move the Supreme Court. They can do as they wish but they must remember that this involves a serious ethical and moral issue.
“There is an important question of propriety. Democracy runs on public morality,” he told reporters at the BJP headquarters on Friday.