Two days after conducting raids on multiple offices of the media house of popular Hindi newspaper, Dainik Bhaskar, the Income tax department has made shocking revelations as they claimed to have found fictitious transaction of the value as large as Rs. 2200 crores during the search and investigation.
On 22nd July 2021, raids were carried out by the income tax department at offices of Dainik Bhaskar media group at several locations across nine cities including Noida, Delhi, Indore, Bhopal, and Ahmadabad for alleged tax evasion. Search was also conducted at the residence of the owner of the Dainik Bhaskar Media group in Bhopal on the same day.
The income tax department has also alleged that the group has evaded tax of Rs 700 crores over a period of six years.
While the statement issued by CBDT has not named the group, but official sources and media reports have identified it as Dainik Bhaskar group with its headquarter in Bhopal and is involved in various business sectors as media, power, textiles and real estate with yearly turnover of more than Rs 6,000 crores.
It has been revealed in enquiries that there have been fictitious transactions without actual movement or delivery of goods as per the CBDT statement.
CBDT has informed through its statement that the group has multiple companies out of which several have been in the name of the employees. These companies have been used for booking bogus or fictitious expenses and routing of funds. The profits have been alleged to have been “siphoned off “ from listed companies to closely held companies.
“Some were found to be relatives, who had willingly and knowingly signed the papers but had no knowledge or control of the business activities of the companies, in which they were supposed to be directors and shareholders,” claimed by CBDT in the statement.
As per several published media reports, the employees whose name have come up as shareholders and directors of the companies have denied being in knowledge of the same and also that they had given their Aadhaar Number and digital signatures in good faith to their employer.
Money trial is being unearthed by the income tax department and the amount of income escaping tax might increase as investigation would progress further.
Investigation agencies are examining the violation under various sections of Companies Act and Clause 49 of the Listing Agreement prescribed for listed companies by SEBI along with probing violations under various other acts also such as Benami Transaction Prohibition Act.
