New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear Vodafone’s plea seeking directions to the income tax department to expeditiously process its claim for refund of over Rs 4,759 crore with regards to returns filed for the assessment years 2014-15 to 2017-18.
The matter was before a bench comprising Justices U.U. Lalit and Ashok Bhushan. The bench sought the Centre’s response within four weeks.
The telecom company had approached the apex court challenging the 14 December order of the Delhi high court rejecting its tax refund plea on finding merit in the tax department’s argument that a substantial outstanding demand was pending against the company and there was likelihood of more demands being made after the assessments in question were scrutinised.
The court had noted the tax department’s right to adjust the demands against the refunds that may arise but have not yet been determined due to the ongoing scrutiny proceedings.
The court also noted that assessments for the years in question were either facing special audit or were pending before the assessment officer for scrutiny and since scrutiny assessment for earlier years had led to raising of substantial demand, the tax department had decided not to process the company’s returns.
(With PTI inputs)