Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday that the Centre had passed no order on the National Herald case, asking the Congress to fight the battle legally, instead of calling it ‘political vendetta’ and disrupting Parliament.
“The government, so far, has not taken any punitive action. The Enforcement Directorate has not issued any notice to them. The Income Tax authorities will follow their own procedure,” Jaitley wrote on Thursday in a Facebook post titled Why the Congress is wrong .
Noting that the Criminal Court had taken cognizance of the offence, which has also been upheld by the High Court, he said, “…Why should the Congress Party and its leaders not contest the notice before the Court? The Government cannot help them in the matter, nor can the Parliament”. Urging the Congress to not “disturb the Parliament and prevent the legislative activity from continuing”, he wrote,
“By disrupting democracy the financial web created by the Congress leaders cannot be undone.” The Congress transferred tax exempt money to a real estate company, which then acquired 99 per cent of the share-holding of the former newspaper company, he wrote, adding that “Prima facie, it can be said that there was a breach of the provisions of the Income Tax Act in as much as an exempted income is used for a non-exempt purpose.” The profits from the transaction will become huge taxable income, he pointed out.
“Effectively, the Section 25 company substantially controlled by the leaders of the Congress Party now owns all the properties acquired for a newspaper publication, and for virtually no consideration, the Section 25 company owns all the assets,” he noted.