The Income Tax Department on Tuesday conducted a survey operation at the BBC’s offices in Delhi and Mumbai as part of a tax evasion investigation, officials said.The surprise action comes weeks after the broadcaster aired a two-part documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots and India.
The department is looking at documents related to the business operations of the company and those related to its Indian arm, they said.As part of a survey, the Income Tax Department only covers the business premises of a company and does not raid residences and other locations of its promoters or directors. Teams from the Income Tax department were at the BBC office in New Delhi on Tuesday in what officials from the department described as a “survey”.
The visit from tax officials comes less than a month after the BBC released a two-part documentary, India: The Modi Question, which looked at the 2002 Gujarat riots, and was dismissed as the Indian government as “propaganda”.
A Central Board of Direct Taxes official confirmed to HT that officials were at the BBC office in New Delhi. “It is a survey and not a raid,” he said.
A second official said that the department was investigating “certain matters related to BBC based on definite inputs of some irregularities”. “Surveys are conducted to ascertain these irregularities. Only after completion of survey, it would be ascertained whether there are any deliberate irregularities or not,” the second official said, asking not to be named.
Officials reached the office a little before noon on Tuesday, with assistance of the seventh battalion of the Delhi Police. To be sure, the officials did not draw any link between the documentary and the survey.
In January, when the documentary on the Gujarat riots was released, the ministry of external affairs (MEA) questioned its motives, and said it lacked objectivity. “It makes us wonder about the purpose of this exercise and the agenda behind it. This is a propaganda piece designed to push a particular discredited narrative. The bias, the lack of objectivity, and a continuing colonial mindset, is blatantly visible,” MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said at the time.
