HYDERABAD: Pointing to technical flaws and procedural faults by the income-tax (I-T) authorities here regarding the Rs 5 crore that were seized from a private firm, which did not have books of accounts, the Telangana High Court directed the authorities to refund the amount to the person from whom it had been seized along with 12 per cent interest. The court also directed the I–T authorities to pay Rs 20,000 to the petitioner.
A division bench, comprising Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao and Justice T. Amarnath Goud, was dealing with two petitions of Mectec Company and its employee Vipul Kumar Patel from Gujarat, who challenged seizing of the amount by the director of income-tax.
The petitioner contented that the task force had detained him and certain others on August 13, 2019, for carrying Rs 5 crore and handed him over to the I-T department four days later, only after a habeas corpus was filed for illegal detention. Mectec and Vipul Kumar also…