The Enforcement Directorate Wednesday registered a case against the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) India under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) for alleged foreign exchange violation, news agency PTI reported.
Earlier in February, the Income-Tax Department had carried out surveys at the premises of the BBC in New Delhi, Mumbai on what it alleged was “non-compliance” with transfer pricing rules and diversion of profits.
The I-T department alleged BBC has been non-compliant under transfer pricing rules; persistent and deliberately violative of transfer pricing norms. It deliberately diverted a significant amount of profits, and did not follow the arm’s length arrangement in the case of allocation of profit, the department claimed.
The tax department’s action came weeks after the British broadcaster had on January 17 released a documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots titled “India: The Modi Question”. On January 20, the Central government ordered YouTube and Twitter to take down links sharing the documentary, with officials saying it was found to be “undermining the sovereignty and integrity of India” and had “the potential to adversely impact” the country’s “friendly relations with foreign states” and “public order within the country”.
The probe is essentially looking at purported foreign direct investment (FDI) violations by the company, they said.
The moves comes in the backdrop of the Income-Tax department surveying BBC office premises in Delhi in February.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the administrative body for the I-T department, had then said the income and profits shown by various BBC group entities were “not commensurate” with the scale of their operations in India and tax has not been paid on certain remittances by its foreign entities.
