The Central Goods and Service Tax Department’s Delhi Zone on Monday hosted a webinar on ‘drug abuse’ as part of ‘Azadi ka Amrut Mahotsav’ (celebration of Independence) festival ahead of India’s Independence Day. In the said webinar, they had invited Bollywood actress Taapsee Pannu as a ‘special guest’.
It is imperative to note here that Pannu herself is an accused in income tax evasion case. In March this year, the Income Tax Department had carried out raids at premises of Pannu and her colleague filmmaker Anurag Kashyap over unaccounted cash.
On March 3, The Income Tax department (IT dept) conducted raid on properties linked to filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, actress Taapsee Pannu and others. The Income Tax department started carrying out raids on 22 locations on the properties linked to Kashyap, Pannu, Vikas Bahl, filmmaker Madhu Mantena and others in Mumbai, Pune and other locations. The raids were in connection to the allegation of tax evasion by Kashyap’s Phantom Films that was dissolved in 2018.
The Income Tax Department has said, “During the search, evidence of huge suppression of income by the leading Film Production house compared to the actual box office collections has been unearthed. The company officials have not been able to explain the discrepancy of around Rs. 300 crore. Evidence related to manipulation and under-valuation of share transactions of the production house amongst the film directors and shareholders, having tax implication of about Rs. 350 crore has been found and is being further investigated”.
The IT Department during the raids found cash receipts amounting to Rs 5 crores from the ‘leading actress’. Since we knew Taapsee Pannu was being raided, it stood to reason that the cash receipts were very likely recovered from Pannu.
Soon after the tweet was posted, many netizens took to Twitter to point out how Taaspee herself is an accused in a tax evasion case.
Jispe Tax chori ka case ussi ko special guest. 😂😂😂
— Facts (@BefittingFacts) August 9, 2021
waah @nsitharaman @narendramodi pic.twitter.com/AwD8JhO6pR
@cgstdelhizone bhai irony samjhte ho??https://t.co/KMljY8szKG
— Nikamma Pehelwan (@NikammaPehelwan) August 9, 2021
The CGST Delhi Zone Twitter account, however, has now deleted the tweet where it spoke about hosting Taapsee Pannu as a special guest. No explanation is given yet about deletion of tweet by the time of publishing this report.