The Income Tax (I-T) department on Tuesday vehemently opposed a case filed by Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) president and actor C. Joseph Vijay against imposition of a penalty of ₹1.5 crore for not having voluntarily disclosed an additional income of ₹15 crore during the financial year 2015-16.
Appearing before Justice C. Saravanan who is seized of a 2022 writ petition filed by the actor against the penalty, I-T department senior standing counsel A.P. Srinivas said, the fine had been rightly imposed under Section 271AAB(1) of the I-T Act and therefore, the writ petition must be dismissed.
However, when the petitioner’s counsel contended the penalty proceedings were hit by limitation period since they ought to have been initiated on or before June 30, 2019 and not on June 30, 2022; the judge asked him to produce by October 10, 2025 a verdict that he had delivered in a similar case related to limitation.
Earlier, explaining the background of the writ petition, Mr. Srinivas told the court the I-T sleuths had conducted a search and seizure operation at the premises belonging to Mr. Vijay on September 30, 2015 and seized incriminating materials.
The materials indicated that P.T. Selvakumar and Shibu of SKT Studios, producers of the actor’s 2015 movie Puli, had paid him ₹4.93 crore in cash apart from the remuneration of ₹16 crore through cheques. They had deposited the Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) only for the cheque amount and not the cash transaction.
