Telangana High Court rebukes IT dept, orders return of Rs 5 crore seized from firm
Deccan ChronicleHYDERABAD: Pointing to technical flaws and procedural faults by the income-tax authorities here regarding the Rs 5 crore that were seized from a private firm, which did not have books of accounts, the Telangana High Court directed the authorities to refund the amount to the person from whom it had been seized along with 12 per cent interest. The petitioner contented that the task force had detained him and certain others on August 13, 2019, for carrying Rs 5 crore and handed him over to the I-T department four days later, only after a habeas corpus was filed for illegal detention. The I-T department explained that it had seized the money on October 28, 2019, after conducting panchnama and issuing a search warrant under Section 132 of the I-T Act. If the petitioner was going to disclose and explain the cash of Rs 5 crore in the I-T returns for 2019-20, there was no basis for proceeding with any coercive action against the petitioner, the court said.