The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has sought the response of the Centre on a plea that challenged the fixing of Rs 2.5 lakh as the base income to collect Income-Tax while reservation under EWS category are provided to people with annual income below Rs 8 lakh.
In a recent verdict, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of 103rd Constitutional Amendment providing reservation to Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) of the society with gross annual income below Rs 7,99,999.
The petitioner, Kunnur Seenivasan, an agriculturist and a member of Asset Protection Council (DMK Party) approached the court to set aside basic income requirement as per the I-T Act.
"When the government fixed income criteria that a family whose having cross income upto the limit of Rs.7,99,999 as EWS family, then it should not be permitted to collect Income tax from individual having income up to limit of Rs.7,99,999, because there is no rationality and equality in collecting the tax," he said in his petition.
The bench of Justice R Mahadevan and Justice Sathya Narayana Prasad on Monday ordered notice to the Union Ministries of Law & Justice, Finance Personnel, Public Grievance and Pension and adjourned the matter by four week.
According to the petitioner, when the government decided to classify a particular sections are groups of people as Economically Weaker Section for getting reservation by fixing gross income, the very same yardstick should be applied for all other sections of people and it shall not collect income tax from all Economically Weaker Section of individual.
(With LiveLaw inputs)
