NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has given a last opportunity to political parties public interest petition seeking: action, against them for noncompliance of provisions of the income tax and the Companies Acts which require them to file returns since 1979. A division bench comprising Mr. Justice Kuldip Singh, and Mr. Justice S.Saghbir Ahmed, in their order made it clears that though almost all the 15 national political parties had been served with the notices with some actually sending an acknowledgement due. The court was giving one more opportunity to file their replies if they had not already done so. ‘The court directed the Supreme Court registry to serve notice to all unnerved parties through the Election Commission once again, ‘The notices came on a public interest petition by a “common cause,” seeking action against the concerned political parties for their failure to file the mandatory income tax returns.
Mr, Justice Kuldip Singh, observed during the proceedings held earlier last week that political parties being the “soul and flesh of our democracy cannot fail to disclose where were {gelling their funds from.”
According to the petition by Mr. HLD. Shourie of the “common cause’ though amendments had come into force in 1979, no party had submitted any return till 1990. He has also contended in the petition that the income tax department too has riot demanded income tax returns from any political party.
The income tax department had issued notices in 1992 it had not taken any action or proceedings, and in 1993 had stopped looking into the matter, according to the petition.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 24, 1996
