The confusion in assessing Ali’s undeclared income was caused because of a seized laptop that did not belong to him.After nearly nine years of investigations, 14 rejected bail applications and four-and-a-half years in jail, Pune-based stud farm owner Hassan Ali Khan’s tax liability has been reduced by Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) from Rs 37,000 crore to a mere Rs 3 crore, while remanding the case back to the assessment officer for further adjudication.In an over 60-page ruling on February 29 this year, a bench of the ITAT comprising D Manmohan and Sanjay Arora ruled Hassan Ali’s undisclosed income at just over Rs 10 crore and corresponding tax liability at over Rs 3 crore. When the case against Hassan Ali was first filed, his undisclosed income was assessed at an eye-watering Rs 1.10 lakh crore.The order records that the main reason for the confusion that led the tax authorities to believe that Hassan Ali had this massive undeclared income was a laptop seized in a raid — it eventually turned out to be the property of a friend of his business associate. The laptop belonged to Philip Anandraj, a friend of Kashinath Tapuriah, an accused in the money laundering case along with Hassan Ali.The authorities had picked up the laptop in the course of a raid conducted at Hassan Ali’s Pune residence in 2007. It was a joint raid by the Income Tax department and Enforcement Directorate.It, however, took the authorities nine years to figure this out. During this period a government changed, one Union Finance Minister went on record on the floor of the Parliament saying that the authorities had made a mistake in calculating the extent of tax evasion, and Hassan Ali increasingly became an embarrassment for the IT and ED officials.The case against Hassan Ali, in fact, was filed only in 2011 after the Supreme Court questioned the government while hearing a public interest litigation filed by senior advocate Ram Jethmalani.The ITAT, while remanding the case back to assessment officer, has kept certain issues open. It hasn’t gone into the legality of the action initiated by the Enforcement Directorate. It has however, ruled that the documents relied upon by IT cannot by themselves amount to proof of income.Khan’s lawyer Prashant Patil submitted this order to the Special ED Court in Mumbai’s Sessions Court on Tuesday. He told Mumbai Mirror that the ITAT has ruled that the documents relied by the IT can be at best corroborative evidence, but not solitary proof.Hassan Ali became a household in name after the 2007 raid on his house, which had led to wild speculations about his wealth. However, very little was known then on how a mere horse-breeder could have amassed such spectacular monies. His name was also linked to one of the world’s most notorious arms dealer's – Adnan Khashoggi. It was said that Hassan Ali had laundered money earned by Khashoggi in questionable arms deals. This, however, could not be established.While the matter has been referred back to the assessment officer, one document pertaining to an entry of $8 billion in his account in Zurichbased UBS AG has been kept open. But the order notes that in a communication between the Indian government and UBS AG the bank had confirmed the authenticity of most of the documents with the exception of this one document.