IT dept includes Deepa and Deepak in Jaya wealth case

As directed earlier by the Madras High Court, the Income Tax department on Monday incorporated the names of J Deepa and J Deepak, the legal heirs of late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa in the records relating to the wealth case pending against her, for decades.

And a division bench of Justices R Mahadevan and Sathyanarayana Prasad, before which the wealth case came up for further hearing today, adjourned the matter to the first week of April.

Originally, Jayalalitha owed Rs 10.12 crore towards wealth tax arrears from 1990-91 to 2011-12 and another Rs 6.63 crore as income tax dues from 2005-06 to 2011-12 to the IT department. Her property at Poes Garden here and the ones in Hyderabad had been attached by the department. It had also filed cases against her for the non-payment of the taxes in 1997. Aggrieved, Jayalalithaa had moved the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, which passed an order in her favour. Challenging this, the IT department filed the present appeals in the High Court. Meanwhile, Jayalalithaa died in December 2016.

Hence, the bench directed the IT department in December last year to include the names of Deepa and Deepak, the niece and nephew, respectively of Jayalallithaa, in the records.