A petition before Madras HC seeking to exempt individuals with incomes under Rs 8 lakh from income tax.

Kunnur Seenivasan v Union of India
Bench: Justices R Mahadevan and Sathya Narayana Prasad

The Madras High Court, Madurai bench, issued a notice on Monday to the Central government regarding a petition seeking to exempt individuals with incomes under Rs 8 lakh from income tax.

Kunnur Seenivasan, 82, a member of the Assets Protection Council of the DMK, said that a section of the Finance Act, 2022 which requires individuals with income exceeding ₹2.5 lakh to pay income tax, is "ultra vires".

The central government, Law, and Finance ministries were directed to respond within four weeks by the bench.

According to the petitioner, the income tax slabs under the current Finance Act conflict with the Centre's conclusions since it says that families with a gross annual income up to Rs 7,99,000 can avail of benefits under the reservation for economically weaker sections (EWS).

According to the petitioner, the current tax slab conflicts with the annual income cap for the EWS category. Further, he claimed that the section of the Act, "Paragraph A in Part-I of First Schedule of the Finance Act, 2022" through which the government set the above tax slab, violated Articles 14, 15, 16, 21, 265 of the Constitution.