New Delhi: A former pro-vice-chancellor and his wife, who was also a former professor of Delhi University and now a permanent resident of Edmonton in Canada, have filed an FIR against three persons for allegedly duping them of Rs 29 lakh.
In their police complaint they alleged the accused are the partners of a Delhi based chartered accountancy firm, which was handling their tax matters for a long time and have cheated them on the pretext of tax payment.
The complainants are Professor Mythili Kaul (79) and her husband AN Kaul (87), both English professors at the Delhi University. After retirement, they settled in Canada in 2007. In September 2014, they sold their Delhi property for Rs 1.60 crore.
The couple and their son, Sidhartha Kaul, met with the one of the accused in his office several times in connection with the sale and the calculation of the taxes payable. The accused calculated the Capital Gains Tax payable on the sale as Rs 28,49,535. He told them to provide him with a cheque for the said sum in the name of a firm, which he described as a holding firm. They gave him a cheque dated September 12, 2014, drawn on the same account held with the SBI, towards the payment of the Capital Gains Tax. The said cheque was credited to the firm’s account and the accused provided SBI with Form No. 15CB, “certificate of an accountant,” on September 15, 2014. It certified that the taxes had been paid on the basis of this certificate. The SBI transferred the remainder of the sale proceeds, Rs 1,28,80,000 (approximately 230,000 Canadian dollars), to their account in Canada.
Ms Kaul repeatedly contacted the accused and the firm through phone calls and emails and sought proof of filing of taxes. But she received no response from any of the three accused.
However, on July 9, 2015, she received an email from Anil Thakur, outlining a strategy to reduce the amount of Capital Gains Tax payable by her husband to a total of Rs 7 lakh. At that time, she reiterated her instructions that the Capital Gains Tax should be paid upfront. She informed the accused that their priority was to conclude their financial liabilities.
Later, she learnt from another accused in the instant complaint that their Capital Gains Tax liability may not have been cleared and the deadline to file returns was March 31, 2016.
She even reported the matter to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) by way of a complaint dated May 9, 2017. She also sent a legal notice to the three accused.
Police has filed a complaint against the accused IP ESTATE and the matter is being investigated.
