Chennai: Over two years have passed since the death of former Tamil Nadu J Jayalalithaa, but her bank accounts and issues related to unpaid income tax continued to trouble the I-T department.
Two days after the income tax department declared that Jayalalithaa, for about 10 years preceding her death, had been living in a house that was attached by the department for non-payment of dues worth Rs 16.74 crore.
The I-T department told the Madras High Court the former AIADMK chief’s Poes Garden residence Veda Nilayam had been attached since 2007.
Three other properties — two in Chennai and one in Hyderabad — belonging to her were also under attachment.
“We have information about rental income from commercial and residential assets, including the Kodanad estate, being deposited into her bank accounts every month,” a senior I-T official was quoted as saying by The Times of India.
According to the report, the tax arrears and liability arising out of the income from these assets are increasing since her death on December 5, 2016, as no one has come forward to take responsibility to clear the arrears and file tax returns.
“According to the Income Tax Act, after attaching four of her properties, we told the sub-registrars concerned not to deal with any of these assets. And unless her income tax arrears are cleared, the assets cannot be sold or leased out,” the official was quoted as saying.
The senior I-T official said, “We, apart from informing the sub-registrars, sent several reminders to the former chief minister calling upon her to pay the arrears. But she did not take any step either to clear the arrears or release her assets from attachment. The bundles of papers in her file is mind-boggling. There are details about reminders, summons and they had gone forward and backward, but no action was taken to clear the arrears and release the assets”.
During a hearing on a petition filed to stop the conversion of the residence into a memorial, P Srinivas, senior standing counsel for the department, made the revelations about Jayalalithaa’s properties.
The I-T department furnished the information in a counter-affidavit filed before the division bench of justices Vineet Kothari and Anita Sumanth.
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