 "Tehelka murky deals: Income tax dept may start probe soon")
The long arm of law seems to be finally catching up with Tarun Tejpal, the disgraced editor of Tehelka, and Shoma Chaudhury, its managing editor.
According to a report in The Times of India today, the income tax department is likely to start probing some of the mysterious business deals and share sales that Tejpal, his family and Shoma had allegedly done.
The department is looking at the company’s accounts books and is likely to investigate possible tax evasions, the report said.
“It looks very much like the way several corrupt politicians and corporates circulate ill-gotten money through various companies they own,” a senior I-T official has been quoted as saying in the report.
[caption id=“attachment_1266177” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]
 The long arm of law seems to be finally catching up with Tarun Tejpal, the disgraced editor of Tehelka, and Shoma Chaudhury, its managing editor.
Reuters[/caption]
The department is also looking at the exclusive club of “like-minded people” set up in Delhi by Tehelka and the investment and shareholding of Thinkworks, the report said.
Tehelka’s ownership had come intense public scrutiny after the sex scandal, in which a young woman journalist alleged rape by Tejpal.
A Firstpost investigation into the company’s documents available with the registrar of companies had found that on one occasion, a Tehelka share of Rs 10 was sold at a premium of Rs 13,189.
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More Shorts“And select founding members of Tehelka were quick to offload their own shares at this price, even when the net asset value of Tehelka’s company, Agni Media Private Limited (now Anant Media Private Limited), was negative,” the report by Raman Kirpal said.
The investigation found that mainly six investors - Fakhruddin Tahirbhai Khorakiwala, AK Gurtu Holding Pvt Ltd, Enlightened Consultancy Services Pvt Ltd, Weldon Polymers Pvt Ltd, Rajasthan Patrika Pvt Ltd and Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP K D Singh’s Royal Building and Infrastructure Private Limited – figured in the Tehelka saga and that many of these were ‘briefcase’ companies, used only for parking funds from unknown destinations.
“The trend in Tehelka’s investors is that they exist for a couple of years and then disappear after registering losses,” the report had said.
A PTI report later said that auditors of Tehelka’s books have also red-flagged issues like absence of an internal audit committee and non-payment of service tax.
Tehelka Com owns the Tehelka publication group.
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