On Tuesday the Bombay High Court allowed ByteDance (the parent company of TikTok), to operate its bank accounts in India. These bank account...
On Tuesday the Bombay High Court allowed ByteDance (the parent company of TikTok), to operate its bank accounts in India. These bank accounts were frozen by the Goods and Service Tax (GST) authorities in connection with the tax evasion case. ByteDance deposited Rs 78.91 crore in a public bank and got this relief.
The GST authority had alleged that ByteDance had committed tax evasion and had not paid GST. The Chinese company had denied these allegations. ByteDance operates the popular video app TikTok, which was banned by the government last year. ByteDance had last month denied the allegations leveled against it by filing a petition in the Bombay High Court and sought relief.
Senior advocates Rafiq Dada and Vikram Nankani, appearing for ByteDance, said that the entire money deposited in the company's account is frozen, so it is facing difficulty in paying salaries to its Indian employees.
Lawyers said the tax evasion case against ByteDance has been going on for the past two years. The company has provided audited accounts, to the Indian authorities, and all the documents required yet its bank accounts were frozen.
In January this year, ByteDance laid off its employees in India after TikTok was banned. According to its petition filed in the High Court, the company still has 800 employees in India, most of whom are serving in the company's overseas operations.
Advocates Pradeep Jaitley and Jitendra B Mishra, appearing for the tax department, submitted that the GST authority has taken action against the company as per law. Lawyers said that it is impossible for ByteDance to resume business in India after the ban on Tiktok.
In such a situation, there is every possibility that the company may go out of India completely, so to protect the interest of the tax department, the bank accounts and assets of the company have been frozen.
It is known that the short video app Tiktok was among hundreds of Chinese apps that were banned by the central government last year under the provisions of Section-69 of the Information Technology Act and IT Rules 2008 (IT Act and Rules 2008) citing national security. (Chinese App Ban) was done.
What's going on in Pakistan
Pakistan's media regulatory agency once again blocked the Chinese video service app 'TikTok' on Thursday. Earlier, two lawyers had moved the court claiming that pornographic material was being spread through this app.
the agency has provided only this detail. The Peshawar High Court said it has acted on the plea of advocates Nazish Muzaffar and Sara Ali. In his petition, he had requested that the video-sharing app be blocked till it follows the directions and guidelines given by the Pakistani media makers last year.
Meanwhile in America
President Donald Trump's ban on TikTok was temporarily halted by a federal judge. This is a setback to the government's decision to remove the popular Chinese-owned app.
Carl Nichols (US District Judge) granted a preliminary injunction against a ban on TikTok after a hearing on Sunday morning. The judge refused to grant an injunction against the November 1 deadline to run it. TikTok's owner, ByteDance Ltd., requested a hold until the company sold a stake in its US operations to a domestic buyer after the president ordered the removal of TikTok from US app stores.
According to Trump's order, the download of the Chinese-owned short video sharing app (TikTok) on Apple Inc.'s Apple Store and Alphabet Inc.'s Google Playstore was banned after 11:59 pm on Sunday.
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