Vijayabaskar received money from mining and gutkha firms: IT dept tells HC
The Income Tax (I-T) department has informed the Madras High Court that it had to attach certain properties and bank accounts of former health minister and AIADMK leader C Vijayabaskar to prevent him from transferring the properties to other persons and for his failure to pay 20% of the outstanding demand for tax evasion.
“Immovable properties were attached on October 20 after providing opportunity to the petitioner to pay only 20% of the outstanding (demand) for the assessment years 2012-13 to 2014-15 as the appeal is pending,” the counter-affidavit filed by tax recovery officer (TRO) Kumar Deepak Raj stated.
It added that the attachment of properties and bank accounts, made in the wake of seizure of incriminating documents of undisclosed income during raids held in his premises in 2017, was not a fresh attachment. Originally, the immovable properties were attached under Section 281B of the Act through an order passed on March 11, 2021 during pendency of the assessment proceedings and the same was extended till the attachment of properties by the TRO.
“The TRO attached the property after following due procedure of law as per the second schedule of the Income Tax Act, 1961,” the affidavit explained. The I-T department had attached 117 acres of land and four bank accounts belonging to Vijayabaskar who held the health portfolio in the previous AIADMK government.