At 7,000 crore dues, LIC is India’s top tax defaulter

Ex-J’khand CM Madhu Koda, With 103Cr, Named In Individual Category
New Delhi: Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India, the country’s largest insurer, has over Rs 7,000 crore in tax demand pending against it. This makes it the biggest tax defaulter in the country. Among other defaulters are Aditya Birla Telecom, Vodafone Infrastructure and Bharat Petroleum, data given by the income tax department under RTI showed.

The list of top 10 pending tax demands in each category was given to activist Subhash Agrawal in response to his RTI application seeking the list of top tax defaulters.

The tax demand raised by the department against LIC is for the assessment year 2010, which is pending “as on date”, the response furnished on January 27, 2014, said.

In the companies category, the top slot was given to LIC, which also had the biggest pending tax demand in all the other categories, according to the RTI reply. The demand against LIC was Rs 7,027 crore, followed by Aditya Birla Telecom (Rs 2,372 crore), Vodafone Infrastructure (Rs 2,038 crore), Idea Cellular (Rs 1,517 crore ) and Bharat Petroleum (Rs 1,494 crore ).

Other companies with pending tax demand include Nerka Chemicals (Rs 1,354 crore), Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Rs 1,234 crore), Andhra Pradesh Beverages Corporation (Rs 1,228 crore), HDFC Bank (Rs 1,051 crore) and IndianOil Corporation (Rs 874 crore).

In the individual category, those with pending tax demand included Sanjay Singal (Rs 280 crore), followed by Sukesh Gupta (Rs 155 crore) and former Jharkhand CM Madhu Koda (Rs 103 crore).

“This is to state that this office is only having a list of wherein demand is pending as on date... Now how many or which of the demand comes or not comes under a particular section wherein the assessee is deemed to be in defaulter, such linking is neither available nor possible to be collated by this office,” additional I-T director Ashish Abrol said in the response.

The ‘trust’ category is led by Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, with pending tax demand of Rs 654 crore, followed by the Jamsetji Tata Trust (Rs 290 crore), the Board of Control for Cricket in India (Rs 167 crore), Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (Rs 162 crore), NEIA Trust (Rs Rs 83 crore), UP Forest Corporation (Rs 51 crore) and Divya Yog Mandir Trust (Rs 41 crore), among others.
Courtesy:
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
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RTI: Civic engineer to pay 25k fine for withholding info

Mumbai: A junior engineer of the Mira Bhayander Municipal Corporation (MBMC) has been ordered to pay a fine of Rs 25,000 for refusing to part with data under the Right To Information (RTI) Act.

On August 3, 2011, the complainant, Chandresh Gala, had filed an RTI plea seeking information about a recreational ground at Sheetal Nagar in Mira Road.

Gala filed the plea before MBMC’s junior engineer Umesh Avchar. When Avchar failed to respond within the stipulated period of 30 days, Gala filed a first appeal before the assistant director in the town planning department, Satyavan Dhangave, on September 3, 2011.

When Dhangave failed to respond within the stipulated period of 90 days, Gala went for a second appeal before the state information commission (Konkan region) on October 14, 2011.

Recently, the commission found Avchar guilty of refusing to reveal information sought under the RTI Act.

The penalty for failing to provide information is Rs 250 per day. Civic officials said the fine of Rs 25,000 will be deducted from Avchar’s salary every month. The civic body has also been directed to take “administrative action” against Dhangave. Gala will get the details of his RTI plea free of charge.
Courtesy:
Sandhya Nair & Nitasha Natu TNN
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Hiding Scams : RBI cites law to stonewall RTI info

Central bank has moved courts 9 times against CIC orders to share info

AS cases of denial of information under the Right to Information Act pile up, the Reserve Bank of India approached various courts as many as nine times against the Central Information Commission’s (CIC) orders directing it to provide information. Seven of these cases are now pending in the Delhi High Court while two are in the Bombay High Court.

Not only has the RBI preferred litigation against providing information, the central bank earlier this year also refused to give information on expenses it has incurred on such litigation against CIC orders.

Besides these nine cases, there are three others cases in which the RBI sought to become a petitioner to block information against the CIC’s decisions. In these cases, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and ICICI Bank are currently petitioners. The RBI wants to defend them by becoming a petitioner too.

While these are extreme cases where applicants are fighting RBI in court order to get information, several other applicants simply get disheartened by the bank’s refusal and do not pursue it. Asked about the bank’s repeated rejections of RTI applications, RBI’s official spokesperson said, “The RBI approached the court of law as it was aggrieved by the CIC’s decisions.”
A common reason cited by the RBI to refuse information is “fiduciary capacity”, an exemption clause in the RTI Act.

Activist SS Vohra who sought copies of advisory notes issued by RBI to ICICI Bank and other nine banks says this clause was clearly misused in his case. The advisory notes are issued if bank/s have not complied with RBI guidelines/directives/ statutory provisions. After years of appeals against the refusal to give information, the CIC on December 6, 2010 gave an order in Vohra’s favour. The judgment directed the central public information officer (CPIO), RBI, to provide the appellant photocopies of the advisory notes issued by RBI to ICICI Bank during the preceding two years for contravention of the Foreign Exchange Management Act and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The CIC ordered that information be given within 10 working days.

According to records in RBI’s outward register, the advisory notes were sent to Vohra’s Chembur address on December 24, 2010, about 18 days after the CIC order. However, the applicant never received the information. Incredibly, when Vohra tried to find out why, RBI replied that ICICI bank had expressed reservations to the information being provided. RBI’s note-sheets accessed by DNA say, “The ICICI Bank officials expressed anxiety about the serious repercussions it may have because they believe that the letters and contents may be selectively used to publicize the issue in press…” So, going against the CIC’s order, the RBI withdrew the information from the post office.

ICICI Bank later went to court. The case is still on.

This correspondent’s RTI application was similarly rejected too. Despite several requests and long correspondence, an application seeking inspection of RTI applications received by RBI was eventually denied on the grounds of “fiduciary capacity”.

There are several complaints about RBI denying simple information too.

“I have filed more than 20 RTIs (with RBI) but in none of them have I got a satisfactory reply. Even if I get a favourable order from the commission, RBI doesn’t give proper information,” says Girish Mittal, a Mumbai-based RTI activist and engineer.

The RBI spokesperson said all complaints that RBI rejects genuine applications are baseless. “RBI claims exemption in accordance with law and in economic interest with respect to information held by it in fiduciary capacity,” the spokesperson said.
Courtesy:
Sandeep Pai l Mumbai
Published Date:  Jan 08, 2013
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BMC ‘loses’ 400 files involving dodgy developers

The BMC commissioner has asked for police complaints to be filed against members of his own staff after it emerged that over 400 files relating to construction projects in the city had gone missing over the last few months.

Most of these files relate to controversial projects, and the fact that they had gone missing came to light after citizens and activists probing illegalities sought them under the Right To Information Act. Months after filing their applications, they received replies saying the files could not be found.

Last month, they complained to the civic body chief Sitaram Kunte, who has now ordered that the officers in charge of the missing files be booked under the Maharshtra Public Record Act of 2005.

According to Section 9 of the Maharashtra Public Records Act, officers responsible for lost documents can be sent to prison for five years, or fined Rs 10,000, or both.

Among those affected by the files going missing are the Oshiwara Lokhandwala Citizens’ Association (OLCA) and Save Open Spaces (SOS), an non-profit organisation. The two bodies had sought copies of files pertaining to close to a 100 under-construction and complete buildings in Andheri, Oshiwara and Juhu, including 11 in the last three months. “When the 30-day deadline (for the civic body to respond) elapsed, we approached the BMC, only to be told that the files had gone missing,” said Ashoke Pandit, a member of both OLCA and SOS. “We suspected that there were large-scale violations in these projects, which is why we had asked for the files. The fact that they’re missing suggests that officials are hand-in-glove with the developers.”

When Aftab Siddique, chairperson of 33rd Road Khar ALM, found that a few of the files she had sought were missing, she asked for a complete list. “I was shocked. I started digging further and sought details of all the missing files,”said Siddique. The BMC gave her a list of 303 such missing files of projects in Bandra, Khar and Santacruz alone, and Siddique says that nearly all of these involved developers who had flouted norms. Recently, Siddique was part of a group of citizens who approached Kunte with details of the missing files, asking that action be taken. “Some citizens came to me on Lokshahi Din (a forum for redressal of citizens’ complaints) last month and complained about certain illegal constructions. When I asked the concerned officers, I found that the files had gone missing,” Kunte said.

He has now ordered a detailed probe and asked the deputy chief engineers of the Building Proposal Department to identify the officers who were supposed to be maintaining the missing files. He also ordered that cases be filed with police stations at the ward office level, and that the officers involved be booked under the Maharashtra Public Record Act, 2005. “Responsibility will be fixed on those involved,” Kunte said.
Courtesy:
Yogesh Sadhwani and Pandurang Mhaske
Posted On Monday, December 17, 2012 at 12:13:30 PM
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