New Delhi: The Supreme Court has affirmed an order levying a penalty of Rs 10 crore on SpiceJet for withholding the monies which were to be credited into the Central government's account.
A bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi dismissed the appeal filed by the air carrier against a decision of the Delhi High Court in February 2017.
Apart from the penalty of Rs 10 crore on account of non-deposit of Inland Air Travel Tax (IATT) for the period from March 1996 to August 1996, a demand of Rs 8.65 Crore has also been upheld.
"Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner and perused the relevant material. We do not find any legal and valid ground for interference. The Special Leave Petition is dismissed," said the bench in an order on March 23.
Senior advocate Neeraj K Kaul, appearing for the airline, sought to convince the Court that since the lessor of the aircraft has already deposited Rs 12.5 crore for getting it released, this amount should be considered as payment towards the demand and the penalty.
But the bench found force in the reasoning given by the Commissioner of Customs (Appeals) in rejecting this contention.
The Commissioner had noted that SpiceJet had not produced any letter from the lessor or any TR6 Callan to prove that Rs 12.5 crore was deposited against its liability.
Further, the Delhi High Court, while concurring with this view, deposit of this amount would represent only the aircraft and not such amounts as were to be recovered from the carrier and that the monies deposited by a third party could not be deemed to have been adjusted against the aforesaid dues of the tax as well as the penalty.
Finding no fault with these two orders, the apex court declined to interfere with the order of demand and the penalty.
The Finance Act obligated every carrier to collect tax on every inland journey from the passenger at the rate of 10% of the fare. The carrier has to credit the amount to the Central government failing which an interest over delayed payment can be charged.
The Delhi High Court had held that "deliberate withholding of monies (taxes) by the petitioner (SpiceJet) from such statutorily sanctioned collections and diversion of it by the carrier for its own private use, instead of crediting it into government’s account was in blatant disregard to statutory provisions."
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