Delhi High Court extends stay on Sahara Case proceedings

The Delhi High Court today, after granting a last opportunity to Sahara’s counsel for filing a rejoinder-affidavit, extended till November 27^th the stay on trial court proceedings against Sahara Chief Subrata Roy, now in Tihar Jail, in an income tax case for allegedly not filing returns.

The IT department had on February 13^th in its affidavit against Sahara and three of its directors, had contended that it had filed a complaint under Section 276 CC of the IT Act in the trial court, as they had not filed their IT returns for the Company in the year 2013-1014.

In its affidavit, it had also mentioned that action was taken after issuing a show-cause notice to them and that the amounts claimed by the Company and its directors as losses were incorrect.

A petition was moved by Subrata Roy, J B Roy and Gupta after warrants were issued against them seeking stay of the warrant and proceedings before the trial court while another director, O P Srivastava, had also moved to court seeking quashing of the trial court proceedings.

Justice Suresh Kait said the interim order of April 10^th, staying the proceedings and bailable warrants against two directors of Sahara India Commercial Corporation Ltd (SICCL), J B Roy and Ranoj Das Gupta, to continue. It had earlier also stayed the production warrants issued by trial court against Subrata Roy.

The court extended relief to the Sahara chief and others after they sought time to submit their reply to the affidavit filed by the IT department. The court, however, granted them last opportunity to file their rejoinders against the IT department affidavit.

Through its April 10 order, the high court had also stayed the proceedings against SICCL which was made an accused in the case.

On March 24, the trial court had issued bailable warrants against J B Roy and Gupta for their failure to appear before it and had sought the presence of all the accused on April 15^th. It had also issued production warrant for Subrata Roy and directed the jail authorities to produce him before it.

The income tax return was not filed by them till the time of filing of the complaint and cognisance taken by the court.

The IT department's complaint said that several notices were issued to the firm and its directors. In their letters, the accused had sought time to file the return but did not do so even after they were granted time.

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