HC permits clubbing Jaya's IT cases

Chennai, July 24 (UNI) Madras High Court today gave permission for clubbing two income tax cases as sought by former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.

Following a plea from Ms Jayalalithaa's counsel N Jyothi, a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice A P Shah and Mr Justice D Murugesan permitted the clubbing of the writ petition challenging the 'vires' of Sec 278 E of the Income Tax Act and revision petitions challenging an order of the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (Economic Offences-I) dated June 14, 2006 dismissing her petitions seeking to discharge her from the IT cases.

Under Sec 278 E of the IT Act, for presumption as to the culpable mental state in any prosecution for any offence under the Act which required a culpable mental state on the part of the accused, the court shall presume the extent of such mental state.

The onus will be on the accused to prove he had no such mental state with respect to the offence charged under the Act.

In his request petition, Mr Jyothi submitted the facts and issues were substantially the same and inter-related and the interim relief prayed for were also similar.

It would therefore be expedient in the interest of justice and to avoid conflicting orders/decisions that all the petitions were clubbed together and listed before the same judge.

The request was being made in view of the fact that different portfolios were allocated to different judges as a result of which the revision petition and the writ petition would be posted before different benches he said while seeking appropriate directions to the Registry.

Objecting to the prayer, IT Department Counsel Ramasamy said the petitions were not even numbered and the cases had different jurisdiction.

The Bench then ordered the clubbing of the cases and posted them before a senior judge.

On June 14, the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate dismissed the discharge plea of Ms Jayalalithaa and her close aide Sasikala Natarajan in four cases. The cases related to non-filing of IT returns for assessment year 1993-94 by Ms Jayalalithaa and Ms Sasiakala Natarajan.

In the other case in which M/s Sasi Enterprises was cited as accused,the two again failed to file returns in their capacity as partners of the firm for the assessment years 1991-92 and 1992-93.

UNI XR GM LL VV1931