The ECIR was filed after going into the merits of the I-T department charge sheet and the evidence recorded in it
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed a money laundering case against media baron Raghav Bahl for purchasing an undisclosed foreign asset.
The agency stated that Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), equivalent to an FIR, was lodged early this week after taking cognisance of an Income Tax Department complaint against him and others.
The case had been filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The ECIR was filed after going into the merits of the I-T department charge sheet and the evidence recorded in it. The I-T Department had recently filed a charge sheet against Bahl before a court in Meerut under the provisions of the anti-black money law or the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act of 2015.
Bahl wrote a letter to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and ED Director Sanjeev Kumar Mishra, stating that the agency has acted after taking cognisance of the I-T department charge sheet filed over alleged non-disclosure of GBP 2.73 lakh paid towards the purchase of a property in London.
He said that 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 the letter.
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, which claimed the London property was an undisclosed asset created by pumping in black money.
"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 requested Sitharaman"to intervene" not just on his 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.
The tax department had raided Bahl's premises in Noida in October last year on charges of "bogus long term capital gains (LTCG) received by various beneficiaries" and other charges of tax evasion.
‘HOUNDED FOR NO REASON’
Raghav Bahl wrote a letter to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and ED Director Sanjeev Kumar Mishra, saying that he was “getting the sense of being hounded for doing no wrong despite paying all taxes honestly and diligently.”
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