Vdafone: Assessee's case
In this post I consider the assessee’s arguments (on chargeability) in Vodafone; and in the next post, I will consider the Department’s view accepted by the High Court. 1 The company law point: It is a well established principle in the law of property that one cannot pass a better title than one possesses. Further, ever since the decision in Salomon v. Salomon, it is well accepted that a company is a legal person and has an existence independent of its shareholders. A shareholder has no interest in the property of the company. In Guzdar v. CIT, the Supreme Court of India has held that there is nothing in Indian law that provides any basis whatsoever for the assumption that a shareholder who holds shares, holds any interest in the property of the company. Also, a person holding by himself or through nominees all the shares of a company cannot be regarded as having become owner of the company’s business or assets. In the Vodafone case, the Department essentially tried to lift t...