TMC (M) moves Madras High Court to condone delay in filing monetary contribution reports before Election Commission
Tamil Maanila Congress (Moopanar) has moved Madras High Court seeking a direction to Election Commission of India (ECI) to condone the delay on the part of the party in filing reports regarding monetary contributions received by it during the financial years 2018-19 and 2019-20.
A summer vacation Bench of Justices Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy and Justice T.V. Thamilselvi on Wednesday permitted ECI standing counsel Niranjan Rajagopalan to take notice on behalf of the commission and obtain necessary instructions by June 18, 2025.
Making his preliminary submissions on Wednesday, the counsel said there was no provision in the Representation of the People Act of 1951 empowering the ECI to condone the delay in filing the contribution report and hence the commission had on May 13, 2025 rejected the petitioner's plea.
He also said the failure to submit the contribution reports on time does not entail consequences such as the party not being able to contest elections. The only consequence of such failure was that the contribution would become taxable and the party would have pay tax with penalty, he added.
Filing an affidavit on behalf of TMC(M), its president G.K. Vasan said the party was unable to file the contribution report for the financial year 2018-19 on time due to confusion in the place where it had to be filed and the 2019-20 report could not be filed on time because of COVID-19.
The belated filing of the reports and ECI's refusal to condone the delay in filing the reports had led to the Income Tax department denying tax exemption for the contributions and consequently raising a demand for ₹66.76 lakh for 2018-19 and ₹1.07 crore for 2019-20, the petitioner said.
Claiming that the delay in filing the contribution reports was neither intentional nor deliberate, the petitioner sought a direction to the ECI to condone the delay in filing the contribution reports as mandated under Section 29C(3) of the Representation of the Poeple Act of 1951.
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