The offices of Quintillion Media (Quint and Quintype) were raided yesterday by Income Tax officers citing a ‘search and survey’, which allegedly went on for 22 hours. I-T officers at the office also asked for a list of employees and their contact details, outside of requests for the accounts books and other revenue information. According to The Quint’s report, I-T officers also went to the houses of Raghav Bahl (Editor-in-chief of the Quint) and Ritu Kapur (CEO). The searches for both the office and the residence were warranted under Section 132 of the I-T Act, not Section 133A, according to the Quint’s report. The Bangalore office of The News Minute, in which Quintillion Media holds a stake, was also surveyed. The News Minute’s editor-in-chief Dhanya Rajendran is reportedly said that the organisation was complying with the requests of the I-T officers in their office. I-T dept looking for bogus Long Term Capital Gain beneficiaries An India Today report stated from an I-T source that these searches were connected to ‘bogus long term capital gain received by various beneficiaries’ while adding that the premises of 3 other beneficiaries Kamal Lalwani, Anup Jain and Abhimanyu were also ‘covered.’ It is unclear if the I-T warrant only included the bogus capital gains or if it meant to cover anything else. “The apparent flip-flop of the I-T officers certainly does not inspire confidence and creates genuine doubts whether the operation is for collateral purposes besides being part of overall messaging to muzzle dissent.” -…
