Raghav Bahl, in the letter, said he and his wife had made “full disclosures” in their tax returnsRaghav Bahl, the founder of the Quint news portal and Network18, has been booked by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a case of alleged money laundering for holding undeclared foreign assets. The ED case is based on a chargesheet filed by the Income Tax Department against Bahl under the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) Act. The I-T department has alleged that Bahl did not disclose funds to the tune of Rs 2.38 crore used to buy a London property. The charge has been denied by Bahl.
ED sources said an Enforcement Case Information Report had been filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in the matter.
In a communication sent to PTI, Bahl acknowledged the ED action. He alleged he was “getting the sense of being hounded for doing no wrong despite paying all taxes honestly and diligently”.
“I also have no defaults when it comes to the debt obligations of myself or my business concerns,” he said in a letter emailed to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and the chiefs of the CBDT and the ED.
Bahl, in the letter, said he and his wife had made “full disclosures” in their tax returns which address the legal issues in the notices issued by the I-T Department.
“I have already challenged the show cause notices and subsequent acts in a writ petition before the Allahabad High Court,” he said in the letter.
Bahl said he was writing to the Minister “to intervene not just on my behalf but to see to it that a necessary and laudable drive to track and punish money launderers and black money hoarders is not allowed to degenerate into diversion of resources to hound innocents”.
“Indeed, such action takes away from the authorities ability to pursue real perpetrators, which would serve to defeat the very objectives of these legislative measures, besides wasting precious judicial time and resources,” he wrote.
