Deeply disturbed: Editors Guild condemns IT 'surveys' at offices of media houses

Teams of IT officials visited the offices of two organisations and conducted investigations on September 10

The Editors Guild of India has condemned the Income Tax 'surveys' at the offices of news websites NewsClick and Newslaundry, saying it is a "dangerous trend" of government agencies harassing and intimidating independent media.

"Deeply disturbed" about the IT surveys, the Editors Guild said, it said this must stop as it undermines our constitutional democracy.

Teams of IT officials visited the offices of the two organisations and conducted investigations on September 10.

The Editors Guild statement said it is learnt that the IT sleuths made clones of Newslaundry co-founder Abhinandan Sekhri’s mobile and laptop, as well as some other office machines but no hash value was given to them.

"This is clearly beyond the mandate of surveys as defined under section 133A of the Income Tax Act, which only allows data pertaining to the investigation to be copied, and certainly not personal and professional data of journalists. It is also in violation of procedures laid out in the Information Technology Act, 2000," it said.

"The Guild is deeply concerned that such indiscriminate seizure of journalists’ data, which could include sensitive information such as details of sources and other journalistic data, is in violation of free speech and freedom of the press," it said.

The survey was the second visit by an Income Tax team at the office of Newslaundry, the earlier one being in June. In the case of NewsClick, the Enforcement Directorate had conducted raids at their office as well as homes of their senior journalists and officials in February 2021.

"The dangerous trend of government agencies harassing and intimidating independent media must stop as it undermines our constitutional democracy. In July 2021, Income Tax raids were conducted at the offices of country’s leading newspaper Dainik Bhaskar, as well as a Lucknow-based news channel, Bharat Samachar. These raids were conducted against the backdrop of some very critical coverage by both the news organisations on the government's handling of the pandemic," the Editors Guild said.

It demanded that great care and sensitivity be shown in all investigations so as to not undermine the rights of journalists and media organisations. "Further, to ensure that such investigations are conducted within the prescribed rules and that they don’t degenerate into instruments of harassment to intimidate independent media," it added.

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