Income Tax officials on October 11 raided leading media owner Raghav Bahl’s home and the office of his news portal “The Quint” in Noida.
Raghav Bahl in a statement to Editors Guild said, “I have a matter of great concern to share with the Guild. While I was in Mumbai this morning, dozens of IT officials descended on my residence and The Quint’s office for a ‘survey’.”
Bahl stated, “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. I do hope the EG 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 smart phones to take unauthorized copies of this material,” he further stated.
According to reports the searches were in connection with “tax evasion”. Searches are being carried out on a few more people as part of the Income Tax Department’s investigation of tax evasion by business professionals.
