Income Tax Dept provisionally attaches SRK's Alibaug farmhouse

By Ramsha Akhtar

on January 30, 2018

Shah Rukh Khan has recently been involved in major trouble with the Income Tax Department. The main allegation against the actor is that to purchase the agricultural land, he made an application for farming but instead constructed a farmhouse for personal use. The property under fire is in Alibaug and is spread over an area of 19,960 sq metres with its market value of about Rs. 146.7 million approx.

The farmhouse has a swimming pool, private beach and a helipad. The attachment notice was issued under the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act (PBPT) in December of last year.

This is the same property were Shah Rukh held his birthday bash which was attended by huge names such as Katrina Kaif, Deepika Padukone, etc.

The law says that the attachment of the property can be done for a period not exceeding 90 days from the date of issuance of the notice.

“The said transaction falls under the definition of benami transaction as per the Section 2 (9) of the PBPT Act, where Deja Vu Farms has acted as benamidar for the ultimate benefits of Shah Rukh Khan. Thus, the actor is a beneficiary for the said under the prescribed law,” said an IT investigation report according to Business Standard.

The report also highlights that the directors of Deja Vu — Ramesh Chibba, Savita Chibba and Namita Chibba — are Shah Rukh Khan’s father-in-law, mother-in-law and sister-in-law, respectively. Hence the control of the company was always with Shah Rukh Khan as the directors are relatives of the actor.

It was further reported that an e-mail sent to Shah Rukh Khan’s company Red Chillies Entertainment and Kolkata Knight Riders's chief executive officer on January 24 remains unanswered, despite several reminders.

“Any person aggrieved by the order of the adjudicating authority of holding the property as benami or not, can file an appeal to the appellate tribunal within 45 days from the date of the order. An appeal against the order of the tribunal may be preferred in the High Court within 60 days,” explained official cited above.