Mumbai, July 11 (KNN) The Mumbai court has sentenced a company's director, Ompraksah Goenka to three month’s rigorous imprisonment for allegedly failing to pay TDS deposit on time to the Central Government repository.

According to leading daily The Times of India, the court in its order said “It is clear that the deposit of TDS with delay does not absolve criminal liability.”

As per rules, the TDS has to be paid to the credit of the central government (IT Department) within seven days from the end of the month in which the deduction is made. On failing to do so, the defaulter shall be punishable with rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than three months but which may extend to seven years and with fine.

The company and its director has been held guilty of delayed deposit to the Central government repository of around Rs 55 lakh collected as TDS and sentenced him to three months’ rigorous imprisonment.

In a similar case of TDS default, the director of real estate firm was sentenced to six months of rigorous imprisonment (RI) last year for allegedly failing to deposit over Rs 50 lakh TDS in time to the Income Tax Department.

For defaulting, the Company and the Director have been charged under IT Act's sections 276B (failure to deduct and pay tax) along with section 278B (offences by companies).