BBC News said it was cooperating with the Income Tax Department, which is conducting a ‘survey’ at its offices in New Delhi and Mumbai.
[Photo: Twitter/@BBC]
The Income Tax (I-T) Department continued its ‘survey’ at the offices of the BBC in Delhi and Mumbai for the third consecutive day on Thursday, sources said.
Several employees of the broadcaster have been asked to work from home and those at the office have been directed to co-operate with the authorities, they said.
The ‘survey’ operations commenced on February 14 at around 11:30 am, the sources said, adding that employees working with the media house were asked not to “delete” any data until the ‘survey’ is on.
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The sources further said that the employees are also asked to appear whenever called by IT officials for investigation.
“Yesterday, BBC employees were allowed to go home as they wanted to take rest. They came back today and joined the investigation,” the sources added.
The ongoing survey at BBC’s offices in Delhi and Mumbai was undertaken by the Income Tax Department in view of the media house’s alleged “deliberate non-compliance” with the Transfer Pricing Rules and its vast diversion of profits, the sources said.
It is learnt that the IT officials are conducting verification of certain account documents in the finance department of the BBC offices. BBC News too said it was cooperating with the Income Tax department, which is conducting a ‘survey’ at its offices in New Delhi and Mumbai.
“The Income Tax Authorities are currently at the BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai and we are fully cooperating,” the BBC News Press Team said in a statement on the first day of the ‘survey’.
The development comes weeks after the BBC released a documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi – ‘India: The Modi Question”, which caused a controversy in the country. The Centre had issued directions for blocking multiple YouTube videos and Twitter posts sharing links to the controversial BBC documentary on PM Modi. The Supreme Court had on February 3 directed the central government to produce original records relating to its decision to block the BBC documentary.
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