Didn’t want AIADMK leader Vijayabaskar to transfer properties: Income Tax department

CHENNAI:  The Income Tax (I-T) department has informed the Madras High Court that it had to attach certain properties and bank accounts of former health minister and AIADMK leader C Vijayabaskar to prevent him from transferring the properties to other persons and for his failure to pay 20% of the outstanding demand for tax evasion.

The submission was made on Thursday before Justice Anita Sumanth in response to a petition filed by the former minister challenging the recovery action initiated by the I-T department under the Income Tax Act, 1961 for tax evasion to the tune of Rs 206 crore.

“Immovable properties were attached on October 20 after providing opportunity to the petitioner to pay only 20% of the outstanding (demand) for the assessment years 2012-13 to 2014-15 as the appeal is pending,” the counter-affidavit filed by tax recovery officer (TRO) Kumar Deepak Raj stated.

It added that the attachment of properties and bank accounts, made in the wake of seizure of incriminating documents of undisclosed income during raids held in his premises in 2017, was not a fresh attachment. Originally, the immovable properties were attached under Section 281B of the Act through an order passed on March 11, 2021 during pendency of the assessment proceedings and the same was extended till the attachment of properties by the TRO.

“The TRO attached the property after following due procedure of law as per the second schedule of the Income Tax Act, 1961,” the affidavit explained. The I-T department had attached 117 acres of land and four bank accounts belonging to Vijayabaskar who held the health portfolio in the previous AIADMK government.

Referring to his prayer for defreezing bank accounts as he is not able to transact any business to spend for his constituency expenses, the I-T department said Rs 8.50 lakh was credited in one particular savings bank account by the state government in 2022-23 and the withdrawals were towards his personal expenditure and not for constituency expenditures.

The I-T department said the properties and bank accounts were attached only to protect the interests of revenue and no coercive action such as auction of the properties were made. The petitioner is not alienated from using the properties, it added.