Tax officers stated this was a survey, not a search
New Delhi:
Earnings Tax officers landed on the BBC places of work in Delhi and Mumbai this morning for searches, weeks after an enormous controversy over the UK nationwide broadcaster’s documentary collection on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and allegations linked to the 2002 Gujarat riots.
The taxmen have been finishing up a “survey” over allegations of worldwide taxation and switch pricing irregularities involving the BBC (British Broadcasting Company), stated sources.
Round 20 tax officers searched the BBC’s Delhi workplace. In Mumbai, BBC Studios that offers with manufacturing was searched.
Paperwork have been seized and telephones and laptops of journalists have been taken away, the sources stated. The places of work will likely be sealed at some point of the survey and workers have been requested to not share particulars with anybody.
Tax officers stated this was a survey, not a search, and that the telephones could be returned.
“We would have liked some clarifications and for that our staff is visiting BBC workplace and we’re finishing up a survey. Our officers have gone to examine account books, these should not searches,” Earnings Tax sources asserted.
Sources stated the taxmen requested BBC’s finance division for particulars of its steadiness sheet and accounts.
BBC was within the information just lately over the two-part collection, “India: The Modi Query”, which was taken down from public platforms final month. On January 21, the Centre, utilizing emergency powers underneath the Data Know-how Guidelines, 2021, directed blocking a number of YouTube movies and Twitter posts sharing hyperlinks to the controversial documentary.
Opposition leaders and college students who accused the federal government of blatant censorship organized public screenings of the documentary and college students clashed with faculty authorities and the police at a number of schools.
The opposition Congress accused the federal government of focusing on BBC over the documentary crucial of PM Modi.
“Right here we’re asking for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the Adani-Hindenburg row, and there the federal government is hounding BBC. Vinash Kaale Viprit Buddhi (when one is doomed, one makes fallacious choices),” commented Congress chief Jairam Ramesh.
Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra jibed in a tweet: “Studies of Earnings Tax raid at BBC’s Delhi workplace. Wow, actually? How surprising.”
Samajwadi Celebration chief Akhilesh Yadav too slammed the searches on the BBC places of work, calling them the start of “ideological emergency”. “When a authorities stands for concern and oppression as an alternative of fearlessness, then one ought to realise the tip is close to,” he stated in a Hindi tweet.
Final week, the Supreme Court docket rejected a request for a whole ban on BBC in India over the documentary, calling the petition “completely misconceived”.