Karnataka university wins 14-year tax battle, recovers Rs 700 crore using RTI

After a protracted 14-year battle, the Belagavi-based Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) has successfully recovered Rs 700 crore in frozen corpus funds from the Income Tax department. The frozen funds were initially levied in 2012-13 when the Income Tax Department demanded Rs 250 crore in income tax from the time of the university's establishment.

The Income Tax Department contended that VTU had failed to obtain tax exemption under Section 12(A) of the Income Tax Act and hence was liable to pay the tax dues. Despite challenging the matter in court, the university was unable to overturn the decision. However, the university finally managed to recover the assets by leveraging information obtained through the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

VTU Vice-Chancellor S Vidyashankar revealed, "We discovered that the university had applied for tax exemption under Section 12(A) as early as 1999. However, there were no documents available to substantiate this claim. Eventually, we submitted an RTI application to the Income Tax Department and obtained the 1999 entry register. Using this information, we are now recuperating our university's funds."

Vidyashankar announced that the university plans to deposit the recovered money in a nationalized bank for a period of 10 years. Starting from the eleventh year, the interest income generated from the deposit will be utilized to compensate the university's staff salaries.