New Delhi:
The Supreme Court has issued notice to actor Amitabh Bachchan asking him to give details of his income and proof of the security expenses amounting to 30 per cent of around Rs 6.90 crore incurred by him in 2001-02.
The actor had income of around Rs 6.90 crore from the popular TV game show 'Kaun Banega Crorepati' in 2001-02.
A Bench headed by Justice S H Kapadia asked Bachchan to provide proof of his income and documents relating to security expenses.
The I-T department has alleged that Bachchan's representative before the authorities had earlier claimed having incurred 30 per cent estimated expenses on security to protect the assessee from extortion, something the actor had himself later withdrawn.
Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium said Bachchan had first stated his claim as security expenses and then justified it as standard deduction.
Given the assessee's statement that "the expenses were made out of cash balances, the subsequent assertion that expenses were never made was extremely suspect," the department said in its affidavit.
"Although the Assessing officer did initially enquire as to why Section 69 (C) should not be attracted in this case, on noticing the variance in different explainations offered by the assessee, it was incumbent on the Assessing Officer to make further detailed enquiry - which he failed to do," it added.
Under Section 69(C) of the Income-Tax Act, unexplained expenditure incurred by an assessee is to be deemed as his income.
The Income-Tax department has challenged a Bombay High Court judgment of August 7, 2008, which dismissed its plea and upheld the sectoral tribunal order that quashed the Commissioner of Income-Tax's order.
The department said while Bachchan had in his original income-tax return for 2001-02 declared total income of around Rs 4.61 crore, he had filed revised returns on October 31, 2002, declaring total income of around Rs 6.08 crore.
In his second revised returns on March 31, 2003, he declared total income of approximately Rs 3.23 crore while his receipts from KBC were at Rs 6.90 crore and an additional expenditure of Rs 3.17 crore (30 per cent of professional receipts) was shown.
According to the department, after the second revised returns, the authorities had issued show cause notice to the actor on November 7, 2005, under Section 263 of the Income Tax Act on the grounds that the returns were erroneous.