New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Thursday accepted Nokia's appeal to release its local factory after its seizure by authorities in a tax dispute, removing a hurdle for the sale of the company's mobile phone business to Microsoft.
A bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Sanjeev Sachdeva had reserved its order on Wednesday after hearing arguments from the mobile manufacturing company and the I-T department.
The Chennai plant is one of Nokia's biggest phone-making factories. Nokia appealed the seizure and has been trying to end the dispute ahead of the closure of the 5.4 billion euro Microsoft deal.
The court asked the Finnish company to deposit Rupees 22.50 billion in an escrow account, while the tax demand case will continue separately.
In March, Nokia was served with a tax demand of about Rs 20.8 billion for five fiscal years starting from 2006-07, according to a March 22 notice on the Delhi High Court website.
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