Republished with permission from Newslaundry | Read the original article, as written by Manisha Pande, here
A Financial Intelligence Unit document was used to plant stories in Zee Business and DNA against Modi Sarkar’s ‘tax terror’. The Zee reports omitted that the FIU documents named two companies linked to Chandra as defaulters that owe about Rs 1,900 crore as pending tax.
On September 8, Zee Business broke an unusual story. Unusual because it portrayed the governing Bharatiya Janata Party government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a bad light.
If you are a keen news consumer, then you’d know that Zee Media Corporation and its news properties rarely practice the kind of journalism that holds the current dispensation accountable.
This was a significant departure.
With hashtags like #UneaseofDoingBusiness, the Zee Business “exclusive” investigation was based on a classified document of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), which comes under the Union Ministry of Finance. Zee BusinessDeputy Editor Mihir Bhatt stated that this document was proof that the Modi government was indulging in “tax terrorism”. He claimed that the document has names of big companies, some multinational corporations, which are being wrongly targeted and labelled as tax defaulters by the Modi government: “Kya tax vasooli ke naam pe sarkaar zaroorat se zyada sakhti nahin barat rahi hai [Isn’t the government coming down too hard in the name of tax recovery]?” he asked.
What Bhatt conveniently forgot to mention is that the FIU document also has names of two companies that have links to his top boss, Essel Group Chairman Subhash Chandra.
The omission appears more than deliberate when you consider how Zee Business got its hands on the confidential FIU document.
An email instruction
Two days before Zee Business broke its exclusive story, on September 6, an email from Chandra’s office went out to DNA Editor-in-Chief Dwaipayan Bose, which read, “Pls do needful asap”. (Newslaundry has accessed this email.)
The email contained an attachment, which was a letter from the FIU to banks, dated August 16. The letter stated that “a list of tax defaulters who are untraceable/have no assets for recovery has been identified”. It urged the banks to find out if these tax defaulters (companies and individuals) maintained accounts with them and to provide details of these accounts. The attachment also had the list of close to 100 tax defaulters, which includes companies like Nokia, Vodafone, Essar, Loop, Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation and so on. (Newslaundryhas accessed the FIU letter to banks.) According to the FIU document, the total tax amount owed by these companies amounts to a staggering Rs 2.85 lakh crore.
This list is the confidential FIU document on which Zee Business based its exposé that was aired through the day on September 8. The same documents also formed the basis of a story published in DNA on the very same day, headlined, “Corporates question tax defaulters list that MoF sent to banks”. The FIU letter was also passed on to Bhatt.
It is pertinent to note here that Chandra, along with being a media tycoon and businessman with interests across sectors like infrastructure, technology, health and so on, is also an Independent Rajya Sabha member from Haryana backed by the BJP. According to the code of conduct for Rajya Sabha members, “If Members are in possession of confidential information owing to them being Members of Parliament or Members of Parliamentary Committees, they should not disclose such information for advancing their personal interests.”
While it can not be ascertained if Chandra’s office procured the confidential FIU document by virtue of him being a Rajya Sabha MP, it is alarming that it was forwarded to the DNA editor and presented to further a one-sided picture of the finance ministry’s efforts towards tax recovery.
The tale of two companies
Both reports in Zee Business and DNA tear into the finance ministry for writing to banks with details of tax defaulters. The reports question the motives of FIU and put up a strong defence for the companies under its radar, stating that the FIU list goes against Modi’s ease-of-doing-business project.
At one point, Zee Business anchor Mihir Bhatt, while questioning the methodology of the list, calls it irresponsible. He then asks BJP spokesperson Gopal Krishna Agarwal if the FIU official who made the list would be brought to justice.
Bhatt while naming some companies like Essar, Gitanjali Gems, Bhushan Steel and Vodafone, questions how FIU could come to the conclusion that such big companies have no assets. This is a misreading of the notice that simply states that the companies listed as tax defaulters don’t have “assets for recovery” as opposed to having no assets at all. The list is, in essence, urging banks to look into assets of these companies to recover the huge tax amount pending against them since these companies…
