On September 23, The Bombay High Court has dismissed the Writ Petition on account of the Hindustan Unilever Limited having statutory remedy of an appeal against the AO Order and the consequential Notice of Demand by the Income Tax Authorities whereby a demand of INR 962.75 Crores (including interest of INR 329.33 Crores) was raised on the account of non-deduction of TDS as per provisions of Income Tax Act, 1961 while making remittance for payment towards acquisition of India HFD IPR from GlaxoSmithKline ‘GSK’ Group entities, according to the exchange filing.
The court has allowed the Hindustan Unilever Limited’s contentions on the facts and law to be kept open, and granted 15 days to the Hindustan Unilever Limited to file stay application against the fresh order to be passed by the Assessing Officer and make appropriate prayers in connection with penalty proceedings.
Further to, the Department has been advised not to enforce any demand recovery pending disposal of such stay application.
Hindustan Unilever Limited is in the course of evaluating its next steps in this regard.
Separately, Hindustan Unilever Limited has exercised its indemnification rights to recover the demand raised by the Income Tax Department and will take suitable steps, in the eventuality of recovery of demand by the Department.
