This Is An Income Tax Raid?

When a ham-handed attempt to scare the media goes awry, you fall back onbare-faced lies.

That seems to be the message from the countrywide income tax raids on theoffices of the R. Raheja group of companies on May 29. The raids were a crudeand cowardly ploy to mask the real intention of the operation, which was tobrowbeat and threaten Outlook magazine. Now we learn from pressreports that the Income Tax Department issued a press release yesterday, May 30,claiming the following:

That the raids on the R. Raheja group of companies have yielded

Both these claims are blatant lies.

The sum total of the "unaccounted-for cash" seized from the raids on theR. Raheja group is Rs 50,000, and that too from the residence of anailing relative of group promoter Mr Rajan Raheja. This cash was kept in thehouse for emergency medical expenses.

As for the Income Tax Department’s claim that officials did not enter Outlook’seditorial offices in Mumbai, we would like to draw the Department’s attentionto the panchnama signed by Mr M.Z. Shirke, Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax,which lists the results of the search and seizure operations in the Outlookeditorial office. According to the panchnama, officials have taken awayback-ups of all the computers on the premises on a 700 MB CD. This includes alleditorial computers. Outlook correspondent Manu Joseph’s bag wassearched, his phone book scrutinised and he was interrogated on how he wentabout reporting and writing his stories. This is an Income Tax raid?

The 10 Income Tax officials and two policemen who raided the Outlook officeseemed to have little idea about what they were looking for. They seemed vagueabout what they were trying to establish, and spent 22 hours studying Outlook’ssubscription management system, bank deposit slips, petty cash vouchersand scrutinising old rejected scribble pads used by employees. In the end, theyleft with many of these scribble pads, a 1997-98 trial balance and Outlook’smonthly outstanding statements, and of course copies of all theundeleted old articles on our editorial computers.

All this would have been comical, if it not had been for the sinister motivesbehind the operation. We would like to reiterate that over the past threemonths, we have received warnings, both veiled and clear, from the highestpowers in the Vajpayee-led NDA government. Now government officials arecompounding their folly by lying through their teeth. Sadly, even the lies areincompetent.