Chennai: Former chief minister and AIADMK general secretary J. Jayalalithaa was discharged from income tax cases by a city court on Thursday. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court (Economic Offence-I), (ACMM) R. Dakshinamoorthy passed the order after the IT department agreed to withdraw the complaints as the offences had been compounded by the Director General of Income Tax (Investigation) Tamil Nadu and Puducherry under section 279 (2) of the Income Tax Act, 1961, in an order dated December 26. 2014.
When the matter came up before the ACMM for hearing on Thursday, Karuppiah, counsel for Jayalalithaa and others, submitted that the IT department had accepted the compounding fee paid by them and the order was passed on December 26, 2014. Special Public Prosecutor for the IT department K. Ramasamy submitted that the IT department sought permission to withdraw the complaint filed against them.
The department had initiated criminal proceedings against them for allegedly not filing returns in their individual capacities for the assessment year 1993-94 and against Sasi Enterprises, represented by its partners, Jayalalithaa and Sasikala, for allegedly failing to file returns for the assessment years 1991-92 and 1992-93. The matter had gone up to the Supreme Court which directed the ACMM to dispose of the case before October 6, 2014. The ACMM directed them to appear before the court to file their replies.
Meanwhile, on June 25, they filed pleas to compound the alleged offences. On November 26, the Regional Compounding Committee of the IT department decided to accept the request, subject to remittance of the stipulated fee. Following this, in December last year, Jayalalithaa and Sasikala paid Rs1.99 crore as compounding fee for the closure of the 18-year-old case against them. Passing the order, the ACMM said that the case has been dismissed as withdrawn from prosecution under section 321 of Cr PC and they were discharged from the charges.
