Bahubali vs State: Arrest to arson, Gujarat Samachar boss has seen it all
From being arrested for anti-establishment reports to watching their office burn, Bahubali Shah has often paid the price for rubbing the state the wrong way
Bahubali Shah, the 76-year-old director and co-owner of Gujarat Samachar, is no stranger to retaliatory action from the government, thanks to his newspaper’s famously anti-establishment stance, no matter which party is ruling the Centre or the state.
From being arrested to watching their office being burnt down, Bahubali has seen it all. Therefore, his one-day arrest over May 15-16 in a 2016 money-laundering case or the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raids on the newspaper’s Mumbai properties on Saturday (May 17) must have hardly come as a surprise to the veteran journalist.
A rich legacy
The newspaper, which is Gujarat’s largest daily, itself has a 92-year-old legacy. Lok Prakashan Limited — the parent company of Gujarat Samachar and a Gujarati news channel GSTV, the latter launched by Bahubali in 2012 — has him as one of the directors.
The Lok Prakashan was founded by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Morarji Desai as an independent newspaper during the British rule in India. The first edition of the newspaper was published on January 16, 1932.
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Around 20 years later, it was acquired by Shantilal Shah, the father of Bahubali and Sreyansh Shah, when the newspaper started making huge losses.
70 per cent stakes with Shah brothers
Shortly, Shantilal launched the Gujarat Samachar, and the Lok Prakashan was incorporated as a public limited company in 1940.
The flagship brand owned by the Shah family has since diversified into other businesses. As of 2024, the Lok Prakashan Ltd was reportedly worth over Rs 2000 crore.
After Shantilal’s demise, the organization came to be co-owned by Bahubali and his elder brother Shreyansh, who is now 85 and the managing editor of the newspaper. Together, the brothers hold around 70 per cent of the stakes of the company. The rest is owned by various relatives of the Shahs.
Bahubali, who never married, holds 22.79 per cent of the shares in the Lok Prakashan Ltd, and has played a huge role in building the newspaper and later GSTV.
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Office burnt down during Emergency
“Bahubali Shah, who is also known as one of the sharpest political analysts in Gujarat, has seen the newspaper through major political events and upheavals, such as the Emergency in the 1980s, the Navnirman Movement in Gujarat in 1974, the fall of the Madhavsinh Solanki-led Congress government, various riots from 1960s to 2002, and the rise of Narendra Modi,” said a senior journalist of Gujarat Samachar.
On Friday (May 16), the Congress flayed the BJP governments at the Centre and state for the ED action against Bahubali. However, he has had a fair share of run-ins with Congress governments, too, in the past, including during Emergency.
In 1976, the Madhavsinh Solanki-led Congress government in the state had arrested Bahubali because of a report critical of it. He had been released within two days, much like the current scenario.
During Indira Gandhi’s Emergency declaration, her supporters had burnt down the Ahmedabad office of Gujarat Samachar for an article critical of the decision.
However, Bahubali did not stop printing the newspaper. For over six months, the newspaper got published from a makeshift office in Khanpur area of Ahmedabad that later became its permanent office.
In successive BJP governments’ bad books
The Shah brothers did not have better luck with the BJP governments in the state either. They were once again arrested by the Keshubhai Patel-led BJP government in Gujarat.
Later, Narendra Modi, who succeeded Patel as the chief minister of Gujarat, stopped government advertisements in Gujarat Samachar.
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Continuing with the BJP tradition, Bhupendra Patel’s government stopped sharing government news with Gujarat Samachar and ordered government officials to boycott its reporters.
Raids and arrest
And then came the 2016 ED case, in connection with which Bahubali was arrested on May 15 and granted bail on May 16.
The arrest came after raids by the Income Tax Department (IT) on the newspaper’s premises in Ahmedabad along with other properties owned by the family across the state.
“Search warrants were initially issued for 24 properties belonging to the Shah family. But subsequently, more search warrants were issued. The company was being tracked simultaneously by the ED and IT Department for tax evasion,” said an official of ED, Gujarat.
What cases are about
“The ED case is about share manipulation by Lok Prakashan. It is based on the probe initiated by the SEBI in 2006 and another case dating back to 2016 against the company and its owners,” he added.
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“The 2006 case pertains to a scam pulled off between 2003 and 2005 where initial public offerings of various companies, including IDFC Ltd and IL&FS Ltd, were irregularly traded. The SEBI investigation found that Bahubali, Shreyans, and Shreyansbhai’s late wife, Smrutiben Shah (a renowned journalist), had provided funds to certain operators for cornering shares reserved for retail investors,” the officer narrated.
“The SEBI had issued show-cause notices to the Shahs and barred them from dealing in shares of certain companies for a period of time. Even the Income Tax raids found multiple irregularities with the functioning of the company and companies associated with it,” he added.
Political vendetta, says brother
On May 14, a special team of 400 officials, including officers from Mumbai, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, and Ahmedabad, conducted the raid that lasted 36 hours — something Shreyans termed as “political vendetta”.
“There is political vendetta behind the arrest of my younger brother,” said Shreyans. “The Income Tax and ED raids on Gujarat Samachar lasted over 36 hours. Around 10 pm on May 15 evening, the ED arrested Bahubali, but it has still not issued any statement,” he added.
Neither has the IT Department mentioned the specific charges against Bahubali.
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Bail on personal bond
Finally, on May 16, a sessions court in Ahmedabad granted Bahubali 15 days’ interim bail on health grounds after he had to be admitted to Zydus hospital in Ahmedabad.
Notably, Bahubali underwent a major cardiac surgery in the hospital last month and is currently admitted to the ICU.
Principal District and Sessions Judge KM Sojitra ordered Shah’s release on bail on a personal bond of Rs 10,000 and on condition that the investigating official must be apprised of his health status every alternate day and Shah must cooperate with the agency.
However, the ED action against the company continued on Saturday, with multiple locations linked to Gujarat Samachar being searched in Mumbai.
