Chennai : Two days since a Delhi court summoned SpiceJet chairman Kalanithi Maran in two tax evasion cases, Maran on Thursday issued a statement saying he was not a ‘tax dodger.’
“The companies of the Sun Group collectively and me in my personal capacity pay more than Rs 600 crores as taxes annually to the national exchequer. There have been several occasions when tax authorities have awarded trophies and honored Sun TV Network Ltd with citations for exemplary compliance and for topping the region in terms of highest tax payments. We are not tax dodgers,” he said in his statement.
“SpiceJet was the only company in the Sun Group that had difficulty in making timely payments during 2014, which was inevitable given the challenging times faced by the airline industry. Despite those hurdles, we had cleared all its dues around February 2015 well before the new promoter took over. It is therefore to be noted that there was no evasion of tax as reported but only a delay in making those remittances,” mentioned the statement. Maran argued that he was only a non-executive chairman of the board of directors and was never designated as the principal officer of the company. “I was never in charge of the day-to-day affairs at SpiceJet Ltd. Therefore I had no knowledge of the routine operations of the airline nor was I ever responsible for periodic tax compliances,” he clarified. Maran further claimed that this action could have been “motivated by ulterior motives to tarnish
the image and reputation of the Sun Group and me.”
