NEW DELHI: The Income Tax department on Wednesday conducted searches at three premises of the Chinese tech giant Huawei as part of a tax evasion investigation. This is the second raid on the Chinese mobile makers in the past two months.
As per sources, during the raid, officials looked at financial documents, account books and company records as part of a tax evasion investigation against the company. Some records have been seized too. The raids were conducted at Delhi, Gurugram (Haryana) and Bengaluru in the Karnataka office of Huawei.
However, Huawei on its part said it fully cooperates with the rules and regulations and follows the right procedure.
"We have been informed of the visit of the Income Tax team to our office and also of their meeting with some personnel. Huawei is confident our operations in India are firmly compliant to all laws and regulations. We will approach related government departments for more information and fully cooperate as per the rules and regulations and follow the right procedure," the company said in a statement.
In December, the government raided the offices of Xiaomi and Oppo and claimed to have detected alleged unaccounted income worth over Rs 6,500 crore. Earlier this week, the Information and Technology ministry blocked 54 more apps citing a threat to the country's security. These include Tencent Xriver, Nice Video Baidu, Viva Video Editor and gaming app Garena Free Fire Illuminate, citing security and privacy concerns.
The relationship between India and China soured after the Galwan military stand-off in Ladakh in 2020. Subsequently, the government banned various Chinese apps, which were operating in India. So far, it has banned more than 300 mobile applications. However, Chinese mobile makers still dominate the smartphone market of India. According to Counterpoint Research, Xiaomi led the market with a 24% shipment share while it is closely followed by Realme and Samsung.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) also froze assets of Chinese-controlled companies and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) dishing out instant loans through mobile apps in India.