Income Tax officials search residence of Raghav Bahl and The Quint’s office

On Thursday morning, officials from the Income Tax department carried out a search at the home of media baron Raghav Bahl, who is the founder of The Quint. The “survey” was carried out allegedly for evading tax on undisclosed income. The Quint office, too, has been visited by IT officials.  Newislaundry reached out to The Quint Editor-in-Chief Ritu Kapur to seek a confirmation but have not yet received a response. This is a developing story and will be updated as and when we receive more information.

A statement put out by Raghav Bahl, 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”. 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 smartphones to take unauthorised copies of this material.
I am now on my way back to Delhi.
Warm regards. Raghav”

According to an article in The News Minute, officers from the IT Department also visited the TNM office in Bengaluru. The Noida-based Quintillion Media Pvt Ltd is an investor in TNM as well. “Officers at TNM office said that the visit was a ‘survey’ under Section 133a of the IT Act, and not a search or a raid. The officers asked for financial documents and audit books to be shown to them.”

“We are complying with the requests of the officers at our premises,” said Dhanya Rajendran, Editor-in-Chief, The News Minute.

*This story has been updated