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NEW DELHI: A petition filed in the Supreme Court on Tuesday has sought a reconsideration of the apex court's judgment quashing the Rs 11,000 crore tax demand on Vodafone, saying that Chief Justice of India S H Kapadia who gave the lead verdict should have recused from hearing the case. The petitioner, advocate M L Sharma, said that while ruling in favour of the telecom major, the Justice Kapadia-led three-judge bench considered a due diligence report filed by Ernst and Young -- the global consultancy firm with which the CJI's son Hoshnar Kapadia has been working as senior manager since 2008. In a prompt response to the "conflict of interest" charge, Supreme Court's deputy registrar H K Juneja confirmed that Hoshnar was employed with Ernst and Young (India) but said he was not part of the tax department of the firm which was engaged by Vodafone. Juneja, also principal private secretary to the CJI, further emphasized that the Vodafone transaction predated Hoshnar joining Ernst and Young, and that he was not working for the UK chapter of the consultancy that provided the advice to Vodafone. "The Vodafone transaction is dated February 11, 2007. At that time, his lordship's son was not in Ernst and Young (India). Further, the due diligence report dated February 11, 2007 has been given by Ernst & Young (UK) and not by Ernst and Young (India)," Juneja said. The CJI's response to Sharma's charge will be keenly awaited. In an earlier instance, while hearing a case relating to Vedanta, Justice Kapadia had voluntarily disclosed that he had shares in the aluminum major's sister concern. He continued hearing the case only after no "conflict of interest" objection was raised. In November 2009, Justice R V Raveendran had withdrawn from hearing a high stakes legal battle in the Supreme Court between the Ambani brothers over KG Basin gas because his daughter worked with a law firm that had advised one of the parties to the dispute. Sharma said if it was true that the CJI's son was working in E&Y at the time of hearing of the Vodafone case, then it resulted in "an unexpected scenario" warranting setting aside of the January 20 judgment. He requested the apex court to post the Vodafone case for fresh hearing before a constitution bench. The Centre has already sought recall of the Vodafone judgment on the ground that it was "erroneous" as well as "contradictory". If the 266-page concurrent judgments -- one by Justices Kapadia and Swatanter Kumar and the other by Justice K S Radhakrishnan -- had miffed the government, not only on account of losing out on Rs 11,000 crore in revenue but also on being misunderstood on factual aspect, then it found expression in the hard-hitting 100-page review petition filed jointly by the Centre and the I-T department. The government listed 121 grounds, each pointing to an error in judgment, to seek review of the January 20 order and said it was surprised by the apex court's decision to give relief to Vodafone on the ground that its offshore transaction was a structured foreign direct investment into the country when in reality not a single penny came as investment into India. |
| SOURCE: The Times of India |
