The UK government strongly defended the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on Tuesday during a Parliament debate, a week after Income Tax officials spent nearly 59 hours ‘surveying’ BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai.
The government said the broadcaster’s editorial freedom is crucial and that concerns regarding the ‘raids’ were brought up with the Indian government. The debate also included comments about how proud the UK is of its press freedoms.
“We stand up for the BBC, we fund the BBC, we think the BBC World Service is vitally important. We want the BBC to have that editorial freedom,” Tory MP David Rutley said, noting that the BBC alsso criticises the Conservative Party and the Labour Party.
“That freedom is key, and we want to be able to communicate its importance to our friends across the world, including the government in India,” he said.
Jim Shannon, of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), began the debate by saying the ‘raid’ was “a deliberate act of intimidation following the release of an unflattering documentary about the country’s leader”.
Fabian Hamilton, a Labour MP, deemed it particularly concerning that BBC employees were made to spend the night in their offices and endured protracted interrogation.
“In any democracy, the media must have the ability to criticise and scrutinise political leaders without fear of repercussions, and that clearly applies in this situation,” he added.
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, the first Sikh MP from Britain, was also one of those who voiced concerns about the Income-Tax survey of the BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai.
“We in the UK are very proud of our press freedoms and indeed are accustomed to the BBC and other reputable media outlets for holding to account in a devastating manner the UK government, its prime minister and opposition parties. That’s why many of us were so concerned that in India, a nation with which we have shared values of democracy and press freedoms, they decided to conduct raids on BBC offices after their airing of a documentary which was critical of the Indian prime minister’s actions.” he said.
The Income-Tax department conducted a poll of the BBC India offices regarding concerns pertaining to international taxation and transfer pricing of BBC subsidiary enterprises. Throughout the three-day survey, employees’ laptops and mobile devices were scanned.
The BBC declared in a statement that it would continue to report without fear or favour following the conclusion of the survey.
The corporation, which has its headquarters in London, has been accused by the tax authorities of engaging in a number of tax-related violations and of employing “dilatory tactics” when conducting the survey.
The Income-Tax department further stated that certain BBC group entities’ income and earnings were “not proportionate” with the scope of their operations in India and that tax had not been paid on a number of transfers made by those overseas entities.
