PAN, Aadhaar linking mandatory for I-T returns: SC

New Delhi:07.02.2019

Putting to rest all doubt, the Supreme Court has said that linking PAN with Aadhaar is mandatory for filing of income tax returns.

A bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and S Abdul Nazeer said the top court has decided the matter and upheld Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act. The court’s order came on an appeal filed by the Centre against a Delhi high court ruling allowing Shreya Sen and Jayshree Satpute to file income tax returns for assessment year 2018-19 (financial year 2017-18), without linking their Aadhaar and PAN. There were some other individuals too who had been given relief last year.

“The aforesaid order was passed by the high court having regard to the fact that the matter was pending consideration in this court. Thereafter, this court has decided the matter and upheld the vires of section 139AA of the Income Tax Act. In view thereof, linkage of PAN with Aadhaar is mandatory,” the bench said. Sen and Satpute had filed their returns following the court order and the assessment has also been completed. The SC made it clear that for the current assessment year, returns have to be filed after linking PAN and the unique ID.

The order flows from the September 26 verdict, which declared Aadhaar legally valid and allowed its use getting subsidies as well as linking of PAN. While several taxpayers wanted to opt out of Aadhaar and did not want to link their PAN, the government has maintained that it is critical to ensure that individuals don’t evade taxes by holding multiple PANs. A majority of the PANs have already been linked to Aadhaar, government sources said. TNN

Video piracy: HC denies bail to five accused

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:07.02.2019

Asserting that video piracy is affecting the film industry globally and is spreading like a wildfire hitting collection of new movies, the Madras high court has refused to grant anticipatory bail to five accused, including two theatre owners, who allegedly pirated Tamil movie 'Raja Ranguski'.

"When a film is released, the first two weeks are crucial period for collection. If the movie's pirated video is uploaded on internet, immediately the box office collection would be spoiled and no one will visit theatres to watch the film," Justice G K Ilanthirayan said.

The issue pertains to a complaint filed by producer of the film M K S Vasanth on September 21, 2018 alleging that P Subramanian and S Geetha owners of Kavithalaya theatre in Karur in collusion with S Baskar, V Sivaraman, M Maheswaran illegally videographed the entire movie which was released in the theatre and uploaded it online through piracy websites including 'Tamilrockers'.

Based in the complaint, the intellectual property enforcement cell of Tamil Nadu police registered an FIR against the five for offences under sections 379, 380, 406, and 409 of IPC read with sections 63, 63B and 65 of the Copyright Act, and section 66B of the Information Technology Act.

Apprehending arrest in connection with the case the accused had approached the high court seeking to enlarge them in the event of arrest.

HC allows ICICI to recover ₹4k cr from Subhiksha

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:07.02.2019

The Madras high court has upheld the order of the Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunal (DRAT) permitting ICICI Bank Limited to recover defaulted loan dues of ₹4,066.93 crore from the nowdefunct retail chain — Subhiksha Trading Services Limited.

The first bench of Chief Justice V K Tahilramani and Justice M Duraiswamy passed the order while dismissing an appeal moved by Subhiksha managing director R Subramanian.

Subramanian argued the case as party-in-person after getting special permission from the court as he is currently lodged in Puzhal Central Prison in connection with a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. During every hearing, Subramanian was produced by the prison authorities before the court enabling him to argue the case.

The issue pertains to an application moved by ICICI to recover defaulted loan dues from Subhiksha before the debts recovery tribunal (DRT). As the bank failed to produce certificate along with the computer generated bank statement, the DRT dismissed its plea.

ICICI moved the DRAT challenging the dismissal. On February 19, 2018 the appellate tribunal passed an order setting aside the dismissal and allowed the bank to proceed with recovering the dues.

Aggrieved, Subramanian moved the present appeal before the high court. He contended that the statement of accounts, produced by the bank without the certificate could not be taken on record as valid evidence. Therefore, the DRAT should not have interfered with the order. He further submitted that in the absence of the statement of accounts, the claim made by the bank is liable to be rejected.

Rejecting the arguments, the bench said: “In the case on hand, the petitioner has not raised any objection at the time of marking the document. Even, the entries made in the statement of accounts were also not disputed by the petitioner in any manner whatsoever.... Therefore, the petitioner cannot raise objections with regard to marking of the document at a later stage.”

It is needless to say that the bank is dealing with the public money and such a huge amount cannot be allowed to go unrecovered from the defaulting borrowers, the court added and dismissed the plea.

‘PUBLIC MONEY CAN’T GO UNRECOVERED’

Retaining faculty’s docus: Court stays Anna Univ circular

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:07.02.2019

An Anna University letter, asking colleges to return certificates to faculty members after verification, has been stayed by the Madras high court.

The university sent a letter on December 4, 2018, advising colleges not to retain testimonials of faculty members, but return them immediately after verification. The advisory was issued after a lecturer of a self financing engineering college killed himself saying his certificates were not returned by the management, thwarting him from taking up regular vacancy in a government college.

Assailing the circular, All India Private Educational Institutions Association moved the court saying retaining certificates was necessary as there have been instances of staff leaving the institutions without prior notice, that too in the middle of academic session.

Such sudden departures would cause serious hardship not only to the management but also students, the association said. Under the circumstances, it became necessary for management of educational institutions to retain the original academic certificates of their teaching and non-teaching staff during their tenure at the institution.

Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana, before whom the petition filed by association came up for hearing, granted interim stay on Wednesday and directed the registrar of Anna University to file a counter-affidavit by February 20.

The petitioner-association submitted that they held nothing personal against their faculty or other staff, adding that all educational institutions affiliated to the university were duty-bound to maintain the teaching staff declared by them to the university.

Migration of faculty members to institutions outside the university, or the state, made things difficult for the institutions, as they would be beyond the control of both the university and the management of colleges, the association said.

The university sent a letter on December 4, 2018, advising colleges not to retain testimonials of faculty members, but return them immediately after verification

2nd chance to regularize unapproved plots in state

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:07.02.2019

Owners of unapproved plots, who have not registered under the amnesty scheme for regularization, now have a fresh opportunity.

The government has said unapproved plots which are part of the approved layout framework could be regularized even if owners have not applied for the scheme. The move follows datat showing only five lakh of the 22 lakh unapproved plots across the state have been regularized, after the amnesty scheme ended on November 3, 2018.

“This opportunity is only available for individual owners, whose plots or survey number are part of the unapproved layout framework that was approved by the planning authorities through the (regularization) scheme,” an official said.

Regularization charges for municipal corporations with regard to applications filed between November 4, 2018 and May 3, 2019 would be ₹110 per sqm, which is ₹66 for municipal areas and ₹33 in town panchayats and village panchayats.

Medical Council of India moots mandatory stipends for intern doctors

TNN | Feb 6, 2019, 05.29 PM IST

 

NEW DELHI: Thousands of MBBS students working as interns in private medical colleges could gain with the board of governors of the Medical Council of India issuing a public notice proposing to make it compulsory for such colleges to pay stipends at par with what is paid by state or central governments. Interns in most private medical colleges are forced to work for free or paid paltry salaries.

The public notice, issued by the board of governors last week, stated that it was considering amending the Regulations on Graduate Medical Education, 1997 to include a provision to this effect. It sought comments and suggestions on the amendment within 15 days.

The MCI had received complaints from various states on non-payment of stipends in private medical colleges for several years. In May 2016, the state medical council in Kerala had received a complaint which it forwarded to the MCI in January 2017 stating that the issue was not under its purview.

Private colleges in Kerala were found to pay less than Rs 4,000 per month as stipend. This was even after the state government ordered an increase in stipend from Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 for all interns in government, private and self-financing medical colleges in June 2015.

In the meantime, interns from Karnataka too complained to the MCI. A private college in Karnataka with 150 seats would save Rs 3.6 crore per year from not paying stipends since the state government mandated rate is Rs 20,000 per month. However, the MCI decided in its executive committee meeting held in September 2017 that the issue was beyond its purview as the graduate medical education (GME) regulations do not provide for payment of stipend to interns. This was despite a recommendation from the MCI academic committee in favour of the interns.

The MCI’s post graduate medical education (PGME) regulation has a clause stipulating that post-graduate students will be paid the same stipend as in state government-owned institutions. No such clause exists in the GME regulations. However, MCI has in the past amended rules where it felt the need. In one such instance, it changed the Code of Ethics Regulations 2002 in February 2014 to take away its own power to regulate doctors' associations, thus allowing them to take money as sponsorship from pharma companies.

Yet, despite several complaints from hapless MBBS interns from various states, the council did not change the GME regulations to make payment of stipend to them mandatory. Following this decision, the Indian Medical Association too had written to the MCI supporting the interns.

தமிழக வசூலில் புதிய மைல்கல்லை எட்டுகிறது ‘விஸ்வாசம்’

Published : 04 Feb 2019 17:04 IST

ஸ்கிரீனன்





தமிழகத்தின் வசூலில் புதிய மைல்கல்லை 'விஸ்வாசம்' எட்டும் என்று விநியோகஸ்தர்கள் தெரிவித்தனர்.

ஜனவரி 10-ம் தேதி ரஜினி நடிப்பில் வெளியான 'பேட்ட' படத்துடன் போட்டியிட்டு வெளியானது அஜித் நடித்த 'விஸ்வாசம்'. சிவா இயக்கத்தில் வெளியான இப்படத்தில் நயன்தாரா, ஜெகபதி பாபு, ரோபோ ஷங்கர், தம்பி ராமையா, யோகி பாபு உள்ளிட்ட பலர் அஜித்துடன் நடித்தனர்.

விமர்சன ரீதியாகவும், வசூல் ரீதியாகவும் பெரும் வரவேற்பைப் பெற்றது. குறிப்பாக பி மற்றும் சி சென்டர்கள் என கூறப்படும் தமிழகத்தின் கிராமப்புற பகுதிகள் எதிர்பாராத வரவேற்பு கிடைத்தது. பிப்ரவரி 1-ம் தேதி வெளியான படங்களை விட பல பகுதிகளில் 'விஸ்வாசம்' வசூலே அதிகம் என்று தகவல் வெளியாகியுள்ளது.

இது தொடர்பாக 'விஸ்வாசம்' படத்தை வெளியிட்ட சில விநியோகஸ்தர்களிடம் பேசினோம். அப்போது அவர்கள் கூறியதாவது:

உண்மைதான். 'விஸ்வாசம்' படத்தை வெளியிட்ட அனைத்து விநியோகஸ்தர்களுக்குமே நல்ல லாபம் சம்பாதித்து கொடுத்துள்ளது. இந்தாண்டு விநியோகஸ்தர்கள், திரையரங்கு உரிமையாளர்கள் உள்ளிட்ட அனைவருக்குமே சந்தோஷமான துவக்கமாக அமைந்துள்ளது. 'பேட்ட' மற்றும் 'விஸ்வாசம்' இரண்டுமே நல்ல வசூல் தான். ஆனால், 'விஸ்வாசம்' தான் அதிகம்.

ஒட்டுமொத்தமாக தமிழகத்தில் 'விஸ்வாசம்' ஓடி முடியும்போது, கண்டிப்பாக தமிழ்த் திரையுலகில் விநியோகஸ்தர்களுக்கு அதிகப்படியான ஷேர் தொகை அளித்த படங்களின் பட்டியலில், முதல் 5 இடத்துக்குள் 'விஸ்வாசம்' இடம்பெறும் என்பதில் சந்தேகமில்லை.

'பாகுபலி 2', 'சர்கார்', 'மெர்சல்' ஆகிய படங்களைத் தொடர்ந்து 'விஸ்வாசம்' படம் இடம்பெறும் என நம்புகிறோம். இதில் 'மெர்சல்' படத்தின் வசூலை முந்தினாலும் ஆச்சர்யப்படுவதிற்கில்லை. இப்போது வரை வார இறுதி நாட்களில் மக்கள் கூட்டம் அதிகமாகவே இருக்கிறது.

மேலும், அப்படத்தின் தமிழக உரிமையை வாங்கிய விநியோகஸ்தருக்கு கொடுத்த பணத்துக்கு மேல் வந்து, அதிலிருந்து தயாரிப்பாளருக்கு பங்கு கொடுக்கும் அளவுக்கு 'விஸ்வாசம்' வசூல் அமைந்துள்ளது என்றால் பார்த்துக் கொள்ளுங்கள்.

இவ்வாறு விநியோகஸ்தர்கள் தெரிவித்தார்கள்.