New Delhi: The Centre on Tuesday informed the Supreme Court that holding old cash of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes which were scrapped by the government on November 8, 2016, after the deadline of December 31, 2016 is illegal and the window for depositing such notes is closed.
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi made this submisison before a three-judge bench of Chief Justice J.S. Khehar and Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Sanjay Kishan Kaul hearing a batch of petitions challenging the government decision not to accept old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes beyond December 31, 2106 though earlier it was announced by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8, 2016 that deposits can be made upto March 31, 2017.
When counsel for petitoiners submitted that they had filed the petitions before the original cut-off date of March 31 and the Centre had not dealt with facts in each petition, the CJI said, “If we accept the AG’s submission on legal issue and decide that the window is closed, it is closed for all. If we decide to open the window then all the petitioners will be entitled to avail the benefit.” The bench posted the matter for final hearing in July.
In its reply the Centre said over 1,100 raids were conducted and more than 15,000 surveys were done which resulted in detection of undisclosed income of more than Rs 33,000 crore.
It submitted that searches undertaken taken by the Income-Tax department between April 1, 2014 and February 8, 2017, has led to admission of undisclosed income of more than Rs 36,051 crore involving searches in more than 2027 groups.
