The Delhi High Court bench of Justice Yashwant Varma ruled that the debarment of Haj Group Operator without considering the Income Tax Returns rectified and the CA certificate is arbitrary. Also the bench directed to reimburse the security deposit forfeited.
The petitioner aggrieved by the order passed by the first respondent debarring it from applying for being enlisted as a Haj Group Operator 1 (HGO) for a period of five years together with the forfeiture of the security deposit of Rs.25 lakhs.
In terms of the eligibility conditions prescribed in the policy document, an HGO was required to have a minimum annual turnover of Rs. 1 or 3 or 5 crores or more as may be applicable from Haj “and/or” Umrah operations in any of the two financial years preceding the empanelment year.
The petitioner, who had not prior to the making of the aforesaid application been enlisted or selected as an HGO, had applied under Category II that is the HGOs having annual turnover of Rs.1 Crore or more from Haj and/or Umrah operations in any of the preceding two years (30% quota).
It was observed by the bench that the respondents found that Income Tax Return (ITR) and the Tax Audit Report had not been downloaded from the official portal of the Income Tax Department and thus could not be validated and sent a letter on the same.
The petitioner acknowledged in a letter communicated to the respondents in response to the aforementioned deficiency letter that it had not received any income from Haj operations in the preceding years and that the only receipts reported in the ITRs related to Umrah operations. An accountant’s certificate was also sent to support the aforementioned clarification.
Along with the aforesaid communication, the petitioner also enclosed a CA certificate as well as its latest ITR and Tax Audit Report and projected those documents as having been downloaded from the official portal of the Income Tax Department.
In essence, the respondents claimed that there was a clear mismatch between the two ITR papers that the petitioner had provided on two distinct occasions, one of which revealed gross receipts from Haj and the other of which revealed gross receipts from Umrah.
The bench observed that the authorities acted solely on the basis of the recommendations of the Apex Committee. Further noticed in the preceding parts of this decision, the first respondent had originally neither imposed nor contemplated the imposition of the penalty of debarment and forfeiture of security.
Furthermore, the Apex Committee had no authority to either impose such a penalty or make a recommendation in that regard while dealing with a representation for redressal of grievances. Also, the mistakes in the ITR were finally corrected.
The bench observed that the petitioner has already undergone the entire period of debarment during the pendency of these proceedings before this Court.
It was concluded that the petitioner would not be disqualified if it applied to enlist as an HGO in the future due to the unsustainable order of blacklisting. Moreover, the additional punishment of forfeiture of security deposit also clearly appears to be disproportionate and arbitrary.
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