Cafe Coffe Day (CCD) founder, VG Siddhartha went missing the last evening. In a letter to CCD board dated July 27, VG Siddhartha said he fought for a long time but has given up. Shekhar Gupta, founder & editor-in-chief of ThePrint.in, spoke about the development.

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“I knew him to be a cheerful person and generally admired for having built a new brand,” said Gupta.

“Nobody had the sense that he had such a crisis but at the same time there is a massive crisis in the business world and businessmen do not talk about it because they are scared; businessmen in India have never had much spine,” he added.

According to him, the general environment for entrepreneurship in India is quite dark.

Talking about the tax culture, Gupta said, “The default description of a taxpayer, particularly a rich taxpayer or an entrepreneur is a thief and this very draconian way of dealing with tax issues has come up.”

“Increasingly a lot of the financial issues are being criminalized and the moment you criminalize something the possibility of a resolution goes away,” he added.

Speaking further about the Indian tax system, he said, “Tax evasion should be tackled in a firm manner but in a minimally invasive manner. There is sufficient evidence that I see as a journalist of ‘agencies’ that is Enforcement Directorate, CBI and even National Investigation Agency (NIA) and others and even the tax department simply not understanding financial issues or economic laws of realities and it spreads to the court as well.”