The Congress on Tuesday moved the Delhi high court challenging the Income Tax department’s order to reopen assessment proceedings against it. Advocate Prasanna S, appearing for the party, urged the court for an urgent hearing stating that the proceedings have already begun for three years.

The bench of acting chief justice Manmohan and justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora agreed to list the matter for hearing on Wednesday.

The high court had on March 13, while rejecting the party’s plea seeking a stay on the Income Tax notice for recovery of more than ₹105 crore outstanding tax for assessment year 2018-19, remarked that the Congress “fell in deep slumber and stood reawakened” in January 2023 when a demand notice was raised.

The court noted that the problems that beset the party today were to a large extent because of its own actions, adding that despite issuance of the first demand notice in July 2021 and the rejection of its application for stay in October 2021, the party did not take any step to either securitize the outstanding amount, or seek appropriate interim protection.

“As we read the impugned order, what ultimately appears to have weighed upon the ITAT [Income Tax Appellate Tribunal] is of the petitioner having firstly been remiss in taking peremptory steps in respect of a demand which had remained outstanding right from 2021. It failed to abide by the conditions which had been imposed by the AO while considering its application under Section 220(6) of the Act. The petitioner appears to have fallen into deep slumber and stood reawakened only in January 2023 when a notice of demand came to be raised,” a bench led by justice Yashwant Varma said.

The bench, also comprising justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, said, “Even though an appeal against the order of the CIT(A) came to be instituted before the ITAT in May 2023, it chose to move a stay application in that pending appeal only in February 2024. The problems that beset the petitioner today are thus, and to a large extent of its own making.”