In an apparent reference to dialogue from a Bollywood movie, Huawei India CEO Li Xiongwei told a court here: “I am a Chinese and not a terrorist.”
The CEO’s comment through his lawyer was during a hearing on Friday, in connection with an Income Tax case.
In the earlier hearing, the Income Tax Department stated that Huawei had a “willful failure” of providing account books and relevant documents during a search at the Chinese electronic company’s Gurugram office.
“The culpable mental state of the accused persons is to be presumed,” stated Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Anurag Thakur in a recent order.
He stated that there is sufficient material on record to summon the accused persons under 275-B and section 278-B of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (Which deals with punishment for failure in facilitating an authorized officer to inspect the books of account or other documents).
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As per the complaint, on February 15, the Income Tax Department conducted a search at Huawei Communications’ Gurugram office for the verification of the books of accounts.
However, during the course of the search, Li Xiongwei, Sandeep Bhatia, Amit Duggal, and Long Cheng, willfully and deliberately did not comply with the department, it said.
They also alleged that the company officials failed to provide adequate facilities to the IT officers and did not provide the relevant documents asked.
The court also noted that Li Xiongwei and others deliberately chose to give vague answers to some questions in their statement to the Department.
It further noted that the accused were only trying to somehow confuse the authorized officer in order to deny access to documents and unreasonably took a long time for furnishing data and information which have been readily available.
Recently Li Xiongwei approached the Delhi High Court seeking quashing of a Look Out Circular against him which restrained the Chinese national from leaving the country.
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