NEW DELHI: Income tax officials on Friday searched the offices of online media portals NewsClick and Newslaundry to peruse their financial records and verify certain remittances made by them. Both the online portals have run several stories highly critical of the government.
While officials said these were ‘surveys’ and not raids, mobile phones of employees were reportedly seized and none was allowed to leave the premises while the survey was on. “The survey is related to tax returns and remittances they get from the overseas,” an I-T official told this newspaper, refusing to divulge any further details.
People aware of the searches said some I-T officials had visited the Newslaundry office last month to serve summons, after which the firm submitted the papers. Similar searches were conducted on the premises of digital media platform NewsClick. In February this year, the Enforcement Directorate had raided the NewsClick office as well as the homes of its editors to probe suspicion of money laundering.
The raid attracted criticism from journalists, who called it an attempt to gag independent media. NewsClick approached the Delhi High Court and was granted interim relief. Earlier in July, the I-T department had raided the offices of Dainik Bhaskar and Lucknow-based Bharat Samachar television channel. Both the media outlets had criticised the Centre’s mismanagement of the second Covid wave.
In a separate operation, the I-T department said it has raided Ahmedabad-based media and real estate group Sambhaav and detected “unaccounted” transactions of over Rs 1,000 crore.