Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Income tax investigators have turned up at the offices of Deccan Chargers Sporting Ventures Limited,owned by the Deccan Chronicle; at the Barakhamba Road office in Delhi of GMR Sports,the company through which the infrastructure giant GMR owns the Delhi Daredevils; at the office in Lucknows Aliganj where the Sahara empire supervises,among other things,the preparations for Punes new IPL team; at Vijay Mallyas Royal Challengers Sports Private Limited; at Shah Rukh Khans Red Chillies,part-owner of the Kolkata team indeed,at pretty much all the major IPL offices. Why,precisely? Because IPL is a hotbed for benami registration,money laundering? But does that imply that wholesale raids are permissible? Is a mere perception enough for business-disrupting activity of this sort? Is it not necessary to do some hard investigative work first,rather than to view public anger as a warrant for harassment?
This takes us back to the bad old days of the raid raj for example,when V.P. Singh was finance minister when the income tax department could be used as a tool in a class war,or political infighting,or outright harassment. There are no shortcuts here. The Indian people have come to understand the complicity of our politics in crickets mis-administration: they will not be fooled by merely unleashing the forces of the coercive state on all and sundry. They need answers,they will expect a thorough,transparent investigation and they will recognise,and not forgive,harassment by the state without due cause.
