Raghav Bahl’s home, office raided
While I was in Mumbai this morning, dozens of IT officials descended on my home and office.we are a fully tax compliant entity and will provide all access RAGHAV BAHL, owner, The Quint
NOIDA: The income tax department conducted searches at the house of Raghav Bahl and the office of news portal , The Quint, owned by him, in connection with a case of tax evasion, although Bahl seemed to suggest in a statement that the move might have been prompted by the portal’s journalism.
According to the tax officials, the searches started on Thursday morning at the residence of Bahl in Sector 40, a guest house in sector 30 and the office of Quintillion Media Pvt Ltd. in sector 16-A. The IT department is probing a case of tax evasion by Bahl and his associates.
“The searches are still going on and we can’t reveal details about them right now. The searches are taking place at the office and residence of Raghav Bahl,” said Navneet Agarwal, Deputy Director, Income Tax, Investigation wing.
A senior tax official told IANS that surveys were being carried out over the issue of “bogus longterm capital gains obtained from the sale of some particular companies”.
The searches involved hundreds of tax officials from Meerut, Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Dehradun and Kanpur.
“I have a matter of great concern to share with the (Editors) Guild. While I was in Mumbai this morning, dozens of IT officials descended on my residence and The Quint’s office for a ‘survey’,” said Raghav Bahl, in a statement to the Editors Guild of India which was later released by the company on Twitter as well as its website.
“We are a fully tax compliant entity, and will provide all access to all appropriate financial documents. However, I have just spoken to the officer on my premises, one Mr Yadav, and requested him strongly, to not try and pick up or see any other mail/document which is likely to contain very serious/sensitive journalistic material. If they do that, then we shall seek extremely strong recourse,” Bahl added. “I do hope the EG (Editors Guild) will back us on this and thereby set a precedent for any such exercise that may happen on any other journalistic entity in the future. They should also not misuse their smartphones to take unauthorised copies of this material,” he said.
IT officials said that the searches would continue on Friday. Bahl founded the Network18 group which he subsequently sold to the Reliance Industries group. He subsequently founded Quint.