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Journalism of Courage
Abdul Karim Telgi died while still owing the Income-Tax Department over Rs 190 crore in taxes including interest, sources familiar with the case said on Thursday. In 2005, when the Tax Department first raised a demand of Rs 120 crore against Telgi, it was one of the highest tax demands against an individual. According to court documents, Telgi who was convicted in 2007, contested the tax demand from inside jail in Bengaluru until September 2013.
While Telgi in his tax returns declared an income of a few lakh each year between 1996 and 2003, a tax tribunal in Bengaluru said in 2010 that he had accumulated “huge unaccounted sum from the racket of counterfeit stamp papers”. The Tax Department assessed his income for the assessment year 1996-97 alone at Rs 4.54 crore, out of which Rs 2.29 crore was “unaccounted”.
Telgi’s lawyer argued that the alleged unaccounted money was from his kerosene transportation business, but the claim was dismissed after Telgi failed to produce documents to show he was in that business.
In five years between 1999 and 2004, Telgi, according to sources, filed tax returns declaring an income of Rs 2.88 crore as against income of Rs 160 crore assessed by the tax authority. The Tax Department has seized some 10 of his properties, but had been able to auction only one until 2013, and recovered about Rs 1.43 crore.
