Union of India vs Star Television News Limited

Judicial Analysis Court Copy Headnote Facts Arguments Court observation

2015 Supreme(SC) 488

A.K.SIKRI, ROHINTON FALI NARIMAN
Union of India – Appellant
Versus
Star Television News Limited – Respondent

Advocates:
Advocate Appeared:
For Appellant/Petitioner/Plaintiff: Mukul Rohatgi, AG, P.S. Narsimha, ASG, D.L. Chidananda, S.A. Haseeb, Kavin Gulati, Diksha Rai, Ajay Sharma, Gargi Khanna, Pritesh Kapur, Parvesh Thakur, B.V. Balaram Das and Anil Katiyar, Advs.
For Respondents/Defendant: Porus F. Kaka, Sr. Adv., Venkita Subramoniam T.R., Vikas Srivastava, J.P. Singh, Dinesh Chawla, Harish K., Parag M., A. Agnihotri, Shivaji M. Jadhav, Kamal Mohan Gupta, S.C. Tiwari, Jatin Zaveri, Neel Kamal Mishra, Alok Yadav, Somnath Shukla, Praveen Kumar, Rashmikumar Manilal Vithlani, Vimal Chandra S. Dave, Neelam Kalsi, Arun K. Sinha, Aarohi Bhalla, P. Chetan, Sujata Kurdukar, Surya Kant, Kaushal Yadav, Sumit Goel,Anubha Gupta, Advs. for Parekh & Co., Anis Ahmed Khan, Meenakshi Midha, Pranab Kumar Mullick, Arna Das, Rameshwar Prasad Goyal, M.C. Dhingra,Siddharth Mittal, Anupam Yadav, S.K. Sabharwal, Ankur S. Kulkarni, S. Bindlish, Anand Srivastava, Shweta S. Parihar, Advs. for Lex Regis Law Offices, Y. Raja Gopala Rao, Y. Vismai Rao, Hitendra Nath Rath, P. Sudheer Kumar Reddy, Sanjeev Malhotra, Sonia Mathur, Rajiv K. Garg, Vineet Garg, Kailash Chand, R.K. Kapoor, S. Rama, Shweta Kapoor, P. Jitendra Kalkan, S.R. Wadhwa, Pranesh, Pradeep Kumar Yadav, Dipesh Sinha, Amit Sharma, Anupam Lal Das, Gaurav Dhingra, Rajat Navet, Pradeep Kumar Bakshi, Kushagra Pandit, Ranjan Kumar, Rajeev Kumar, Sharddha and Kavita Jha, Advs.

Order

1. Delay condoned.

2. In all these special leave petitions filed by the Union of India, the correctness of judgment dated 07.08.2009 rendered by the Bombay High Court in a batch of writ petitions is questioned.

3. In those writ petitions filed by various Assessees, the validity of Sections 245HA(1)(iv) and 245HA(3) of the Income Tax Act, 1961, as amended by Finance Act, 2007 was challenged. The High Court, by a detailed judgment, found the aforesaid provisions to be violative of Article 14 etc but at the same time, it did not invalidate these petitions as the High Court was of the opinion that it was possible to read down the provisions of Section 245HA(1)(iv) in particular to avoid holding the provisions as unconstitutional. The conclusion so arrived at is summed up in paragraph 54 of the impugned judgment, which reads as under:

54. From the above discussion having arrived at a conclusion that fixing the cutoff date as 31st March, 2008 was arbitrary the provisions of Section 245HA(1)(iv) to that extent will be also arbitrary. We have also held that it is possible to read down the provisions of Section 245HA(1)(iv) in the manner set out earlier. This recourse has been taken in or

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2015 Supreme(SC) 488

A.K.SIKRI, ROHINTON FALI NARIMANUnion of India – AppellantVersusStar Television News Limited – Respondent

A.K.SIKRI, ROHINTON FALI NARIMAN
Union of India – Appellant
Versus
Star Television News Limited – Respondent