“We are not tax dodgers,” clarified Kalanithi Maran, the promoter of Sun Group and erstwhile non-executive Chairman of SpiceJet.
Reacting to reports that the airline, he, and another top company official had been summoned by a Delhi court in tax evasion cases for alleged failure to deposit over ₹147 crore TDS with the income tax (IT) department, he said the Group and he in his personal capacity pay more than ₹600 crore as taxes annually. On several occasions tax authorities have recognised Sun TV Network with citations for “exemplary compliance” and for topping the region in tax payments.
SpiceJet was the only company in the Group that had difficulty in making timely payments during 2014. This was “inevitable given the very challenging times faced by the entire airline industry. But all its dues were cleared around February 2015, well before the new promoter took over.
Maran said, “there was no evasion of tax as reported, but only a delay in making those remittances.” This has been clarified by the management team at SpiceJet, whose Company Secretary had written to the BSE earlier today that all tax dues have been cleared and that there are no payments pending.
Maran also said he was only a non-executive Chairman of the board of directors and was never designated as the Principal Officer of the company. “I was never in charge of the day-to-day affairs at SpiceJet Ltd. Therefore, I had no knowledge of the routine operations of the airline, nor was I ever responsible for periodic tax compliance,” he said.
It is unfortunate that nearly six months after payment of TDS dues by SpiceJet, a case has been suddenly filed, naming him as an accused.
“Given that the Sun group companies and I have been the topic of several malicious and misleading stories fed to the print media by certain people, it appears that this action too may have been motivated by ulterior motives to tarnish the image and reputation of the Sun Group and me. I am confident that the Honourable Courts will render justice to us,” he said.