Anger at income tax ‘survey’ on The Quint

Income Tax officials yesterday carried out “surveys” at the residence and office premises of Raghav Bahl, head of news portal The Quint, over alleged tax evasion, provoking angry reactions.

According to the officials, a team reached the residence of Bahl – the former head of Network18 TV – in Noida in Uttar Pradesh and looked for documents and evidences related to the case being probed.

A senior tax official said surveys were also carried out at the premises of three other persons over the issue of “bogus longterm capital gains obtained from the sale of some particular companies.

“This issue is about Rs1bn. We are particularly looking at the tax evasion angle,” the official said.

The Editors Guild expressed concern over the government action, saying “motivated income tax searches and surveys” will undermine media freedom.

The Guild noted that Bahl had to warn the officials that if they tried to touch anything not relevant to tax issues, he “shall seek extremely strong recourse”.

The tax official said the three others covered under the tax surveys were Kamal Lalwani, Anup Jain and Abhimanyu Chaturvedi.

In a note to the Editors Guild, Bahl said The Quint was a “fully tax compliant entity” and would provide all access to all appropriate financial documents.

The Editors Guild said in a statement that while the tax department was “within its right to make inquiries”, it should not exercise its powers in a way that could be seen as an “intimidation of the government’s critics”.

Meanwhile Amnesty India called the income tax raids “a clampdown on free press.” The authorities are attempting to silence anyone expressing views critical of the government, Amnesty India said.