The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Hoteliers convicted in income tax case

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 02, 2006
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Hoteliers convicted in income tax case

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: The Karnataka High Court has set aside the acquittal by a lower court of Sapna Hotels and its partners in an income tax (IT) case and sentenced them to six months rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs. 1 lakh on them.

The IT Department had filed an appeal in the High Court urging it to set aside the acquittal of Sapna Hotels and two of its partners in a case of evasion tax and non-filing of returns.

In its submission, the department said the hotel and its partners had not filed returns and also attempted evasion of tax for the assessment years 1991-92, 1992-93, 1993-94 and 1994-95 and each year the amount evaded on an average was about Rs. 9.5 lakh. There was also no filing of the returns on the business.

When the department found there was suppression of sale, it reopened the assessment and initiated proceedings.

It said it had called for books of accounts. Subsequently, the Assessing Officer, IT, assessed the income at Rs. 10 lakh.

The Special Court for Economic Offences had acquitted the hotel and its partners and the department had moved the High Court. Justice K. Ramanna reversed the lower court order.

Adjourned

Justice A.C. Kabbin adjourned until December 11 criminal petitions by Usha Shivakumar, wife of the former Minister and Congress leader D.K. Shivakumar, and several others challenging the registration and investigation of cases by a forest officer against them in a mining case at Sandur in Bellary district.

The petitioners had moved the court seeking quashing of proceedings, saying that they were politically motivated and that a forest official had no power to investigate cases registered under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) or the Mines and Minerals Research and Development (MMRD) Act.

Mr. Justice Kabbin had during an earlier hearing said that the forest officials could investigate forest offences and not those registered under the IPC or the MMRD Act.

Crime serials

A Division Bench of the court comprising Justice S.R. Bannurmath and Justice Subash B. Adi adjourned till December 7 a contempt case against Udaya TV and ETV for telecasting "Crime Story" and "Crime Diary" serials respectively.

The contempt case was filed by A.V. Amarnathan who said the continued telecast of serials involving ongoing investigation of police cases amounted to contempt.

Direction

Justice Rammohan Reddy on Friday directed the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) not to continue or renew beyond December 31 advertisements on skywalks and cantilevers in Bangalore city.

The court was petitioned stating that the BMP had violated the Transparency Act in handing out such advertisements.

BMP's contention

The BMP contended that the skywalks were part of the roads and the advertisements on those structures could not be construed as separate from the advertisement on the roads.

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