New Delhi:
Today, the Supreme Court stayed the Delhi High Court order that held that the 2016 black money law couldn’t be allowed to function with retrospective effect from July 2015 to book and probe offenders.
A holiday bench headed using Justice Arun Mishra also stayed the May sixteen order of the excessive court docket, which had confined the Income Tax (I-T) branch from taking any movement towards VVIP chopper rip-off accused Gautam Khaitan, in opposition to whom a black money case has been lodged.
“Notice. The impugned order (of the excessive court) is stayed,” the bench stated even as agreeing to listen to the appeal of the Centre against the excessive court docket order. The bench issued a note to Mr. Khaitan and requested that he record his response to the authorities’ petition within six weeks.
The Delhi High Court, in its meantime order, had stayed the Centre’s notification to make operational the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, with impact from July 1, 2015. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, performing for the authorities, had earlier submitted that the high court erred in staying the Centre’s notification to invoke the black cash regulation with retrospective impact.
On invoking the black money regulation with retrospective impact, the excessive court docket had stated Parliament, in its understanding, had enacted the Act which changed into to return into force from April 1, 2016. Because the date becomes expressly determined by Parliament, it couldn’t be applicable with retrospective effect via mannercation.
The excessive court docket had in advance requested the Centre as to how it gave retrospective effect — from July 2015 — to the black cash law, which was enacted in April 2016 to address undisclosed foreign income and property. The high court docket has now posted the problem for hearing in July. Mr. Khaitan, one of the accused in the Rs. 3,600-crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scam has challenged the legality of numerous provisions of the black money regulation.
Mr. Khaitan has additionally challenged the I-T branch’s January 22 order granting sanction to the inn a crook grievance against him under phase fifty-one of the Act, which presents for a jail time period among 3 and 10 years if discovered guilty of willfully attempting to prevent tax. Mr. Khaitan has contended in the plea that action is being taken towards him beneath the Act for assets that ceased to exist earlier than the law got here into force.
COMMENT
He has sought a declaration that below the black money regulation, the assessing officer is “no longer entitled to fee tax on a foreign undisclosed asset, which ceased to exist before the Act getting into force, handiest at the ground that such asset got here to the awareness of the assessing officer after the Act came into pressure.”Definition: The word ‘Jurisdiction’ can have several meanings, but if understood in context with the Court of law, it generally means the ability or authority of a particular Court to determine the issues before it on which a decision is sought.
The rules on Jurisdiction play a pivotal role in determining the Court’s ability to address the issues in a given matter. Jurisdictional issues become complex on the involvement of more than one Court having jurisdiction. This is certainly an area of concern for the international trade or business (who may be put in an invidious position where they are unaware of the extent of their liability) and the sovereign states that seek to trade with each other without having to spoil their amicable relationship.
