New Delhi: The Income Tax Department on Tuesday conducted what it called a “survey” at the Delhi and Mumbai offices of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
The operation is classified as a ‘survey’ under the Income Tax Act and was held at multiple locations, a person informed about the development said on condition of anonymity. BBC confirmed the second location was its Mumbai office. The tax department does not disclose specific details of individual tax payers.
A survey is a less serious form of obtaining information from an assessee and is conducted only during the business hours at the official premises, in contrast to searches, which are not limited to official premises and business hours.
Details of any tax-related irregularity are not known. The development comes weeks after the BBC aired a two-part documentary on the deadly 2002 Gujarat riots, which was critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who at that time was the chief minister of the state.
The government ordered social media platforms to take down any links to the documentary. But the Kerala unit of the Congress party held a public screening in the state, as did several students unions.
A BBC spokesperson said in a statement in the afternoon, “The Income Tax Authorities are currently at the BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai and we are fully cooperating. We hope to have this situation resolved as soon as possible.”
Emails sent to the Income Tax department and to Prime Minister’s Office seeking comments for the story remained unanswered at the time of publishing.
A spokesperson for the ministry of external affairs had on 19 January described the BBC documentary, The Modi Question, as a “propaganda piece designed to push a discredited narrative.”
The CPI (Marxist) condemned the IT department move on Tuesday, saying, “It is a standard tactic of the Modi government to intimidate the Indian media through raids conducted by the Income Tax department and other agencies. This has now been extended to a foreign media enterprise operating in India,” the party statement said.
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