National Herald case: Young Indian withdraws petition before HC

The Delhi High Court on Friday allowed Young Indian (YI) to withdraw its writ petition against the Income Tax Department which has been trying to reopen IT assessment of National Herald even in the absence of any additional information, which in law is necessary for such a move.

A bench of Justice S Muralidhar and Justice Chander Shekhar asked YI to raise these objections before the assessing IT Officer. On this assurance, the company, which falls under the non-profit Section 25, withdrew its petition.

The counsel for YI pointed out that “all issues raised by YI were kept open by the Court to be raised in the assessment.”

The basis for the YI writ petition was the fact that the IT Department had “no reason to believe” to justify re-opening a six-year-old assessment. YI argued that this was a legal requirement, the absence of which vitiated all proceedings started by the department.

The Delhi High Court specifically observed in its order that YI is at liberty to raise all these objections, including absence of new information to warrant reopening of old IT assessment, in the assessment proceedings and specifically reserved this liberty to YI.