Justice C. Saravanan grants time till November 3 for J. Deepa's counsel to implead her brother J. Deepak too as a respondent to her writ petition challenging the recovery notice

The Madras High Court on Wednesday (October 15, 2025) directed former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's niece and legal heir J. Deepa to implead her brother J. Deepak too as one of the respondents to a writ petition filed by her challenging the recovery of income tax and wealth tax dues, to the tune of ₹13.69 crore, by her aunt.

Justice C. Saravanan granted time till November 3 for the petitioner to implead her brother since Income Tax department senior standing counsel A.P. Srinivas told the court that though both the siblings had been declared as the legal heirs of the former Chief Minister, Mr. Deepak had not challenged the recovery proceedings.

The court was informed that the Tax Recovery Officer had initially passed an order on July 23, 2025 for recovering a much larger sum of ₹36.56 crore, assessed to be the arrears to be paid by the former Chief Minister from the assessment years 1991-92 to 2011-12, from the two legal heirs who had inherited her properties.

Ms. Deepa filed a first writ petition on August 7, 2025 challenging the recovery on the grounds that any notice, assessment, or recovery proceeding issued in the name of a deceased person was wholly void ab initio and unenforceable and that the writ petitioner could not be termed as an assessee in default.

She also contended that no computation sheet had been furnished to her though many tax case appeals, regarding her aunt's tax dues, were still pending. However, during the pendency of that writ petition, the Tax Recovery officer issued a revised recovery order for a lesser amount of ₹13.69 crore on August 4, 2025.

Justice Saravanan took cognisance of the revised recovery order and dismissed Ms. Deepa's first writ petition on September 18, 2025 since it had become infructuous. Hence, she had now filed a second writ petition challenging the revised recovery order too on mutiple grounds.

The petitioner's counsel told the Court that his client had no means to verify the correctness of the demand for tax arrears since she had no access to her aunt till the latter's death on December 5, 2016 and that she got declared as one of the legal heirs by the High Court on May 27, 2020.

Even after the Court's order, the Chennai Collector handed over the possession of Jayalalithaa's Poes Garden bungalow to the legal heirs only on December 10, 2021 and an inventory taken at the premises did not lead to any documents related to the tax dues, the counsel told the Court.

When the Judge said, the former Chief Minister's chartered accountant would have been in the know how of the details and he would even have her user name and password for accessing her records on the Income Tax portal, the counsel replied that the chartered accountant too died during COVID-19.

Since the other legal heir too was a necessary party to the present writ proceedings, the Judge granted time for the petitioner to implead her brother and asked Mr. Srinivas to take notice on behalf of the Tax Recovery Officer.

Jayalalithaa's ₹13.69 crore tax arrears: Madras High Court directs her niece to implead nephew