IT dept searches premises of Quint founder Raghav Bahl

New Delhi: The Income Tax Department searched media baron Raghav Bahl's home and office on Thursday in connection with a case of alleged tax evasion, officials said.

A team of I-T sleuths raided The Quint founder's premises in Noida early morning and are looking for documents and other evidence related to a case of "bogus long term capital gains (LTCG) received by various beneficiaries", they said.

Apart from Bahl, three other "beneficiaries" and professionals, J Lalwani, Anoop Jain and Abhimanyu, are being searched as part of the same action.

Their business links to offshore entities are being investigated, the officials said.

Bahl, who was in Mumbai at the time, shared his "great concern" with the Editors Guild and said dozens of IT officials descended on his residence and The Quint's office for a “survey".

"We are a fully tax compliant entity, and will provide all access to all appropriate financial documents. However, I have just spoken to the officer on my premises, one Mr Yadav, and requested him, strongly, to not try and pick up or see any other mail/document which is likely to contain very serious/sensitive journalistic material."

They should also not misuse their smartphones to take unauthorised copies of the material, he said.

If they do that, he will seek "extremely strong recourse", Bahl said in the statement posted on his official Twitter handle.

"I do hope the EG will back us on this, and thereby set a precedent for any such exercise that may happen on any other journalistic entity in the future," he said.

In another statement to the media, he said he was on his way to Delhi and his wife and mother were confined to the residence and not allowed to speak to anybody.

LTCG is broadly defined as the tax paid on profit generated by an asset such as real estate, shares or share-oriented products held for a particular time-frame.

Bahl is the founder of The Quint news portal and the Network18 group and a known media entrepreneur.