Income Tax Department conducts searches on McDonald's franchise Hardcastle Restaurants for tax evasion

New Delhi: The Income Tax on Tuesday carried out searches at premises of Hardcastle Restaurants Pvt Ltd (HRPL), the master franchisee of fast food chain McDonald’s, in Delhi and Mumbai, officials said here. [caption id=“attachment_4296693” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] McDonald’s restaurants. Representational image. Reuters.[/caption] The Income Tax officials alleged that searches were carried out against the HRPL following allegations of tax evasion. HRPL is a step down subsidiary of Westlife Development Ltd, a company listed on stock exchanges, including BSE. It is headed by Banwari Lal Jatia as Chairman and Amit Jatia as the Vice-Chairman of the company. Efforts to seek comments from the company officials did not fructify as they did not reply to emails sent to them. According to the information available on HRPL’s portal, it was operating 252 restaurants as of 31 December, 2016, across 34 cities and 10 states in west and south India.