TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (1) TMI 1812
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....I RAJESH MALHOTRA : (MEMBER) For the Appellant : Mr. Jaitegan Singh, Mr. Uday Bedi, Advocates For the Respondent : Mr. Abhimanyu Kaul, Advocate ORDER A challenge has been made to the order dated 13.12.2021 passed by the Adjudicating Authority confirming the attachment of the properties. Brief facts of the case 2. An FIR was registered on 14/11/2020 with Umra Police Station, Surat, Gujarat based on the complaint of Dr. Pemmayya, the Officiating Deputy Director of Income Tax (Investigation), Unit- 1, Surat. It was for the offence under section 465, 468, 471, 420 and 120B of Indian Penal Code of 1860. 3. It was alleged that PVS Sarma and Sitaram Adukia were the Director of M/s Sanket Media Private Limited, a company involv....
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....ial to print the newspaper. 6. It is also that no trading activity of the newspaper could be proved, therefore a fictitious figure of the circulation of newspaper was given to attract the advertisement. The respondent accordingly attached the property of the appellant and sent the provisional attachment order for its confirmation to the Adjudicating Authority. The Adjudicating Authority after hearing the parties confirmed the attachment which has been challenged by the appellant. Argument of the learned counsel for the Appellant 7. The learned counsel for the appellant submitted that the value of property has been taken artificially to justify the attachment and otherwise the allegation against the appellant to disclose higher circ....
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....be referred by us while recording the finding to each issue raised by the appellant. It is to avoid the repetition of one and same facts. 10. We have considered the rival submission and scanned the matter carefully. 11. The allegation against the appellant is to disclose fictitious number of the circulation of newspaper than actual. It was to attract the advertisement on a higher rate and in which appellant remained successful and collected sum of Rs. 2.70 crore. 12. The appellant had shown circulation of the newspaper in Gujarati to be 23,500 while for English newspaper 6000-6300 as against the actual circulation of 300-600 copies of newspaper in Gujarati and 0-290 for the English newspaper. 13. The appellant has failed to plac....
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....y his case by producing evidence but it failed. As against the aforesaid, the respondent ED made investigation and collected the material to prove receipt of higher amount towards the advertisement based on fictitious number of the newspaper alleged to be under circulation. The amount of Rs. 2.70 crore received by the appellant's firm was then distributed to different entities through many banks and out of this the appellant PVS Sarma himself received 41,90,000/- on 01.04.2020. The bank statement further shows the withdrawal of the amount of Rs. 6,90,000/- from the year 2012 to 2018. 17. In view of the above, not only the appellants received undue amount towards advertisement but transferred it to different entities and even withdrawn Rs....