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https://www.superfoodly.com/buddhas-hand/

holding hand with fingered citron fruit
What Is Buddha’s Hand Fruit & How Do You Eat It?
SuperfoodlyJanuary 1, 2018
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Contents [hide]
What is Buddha’s hand?
What does it taste like?
What does it smell like?
Nutrition facts
Health benefits
Nerve regeneration
Lower blood sugar
Anti-inflammatory
Alleviating lump in throat
How to eat Buddha’s hand on

Storing the fruit
What to do with Buddha’s hand
1. Use as an edible novelty for parties
2. Cook with vegetables
3. Make an herbal tea
4. Boil for jam and marmalade
5. Infusion for vodka and cocktails
6. Candied fruit
7. Air freshener
Where to buy
How to grow
It wouldn’t bode well for marketing, but “Medusa’s head” would be just as fitting of a name for this ball of freakish tentacles.
Despite the out of this world appearance, it’s a totally natural and non-GMO fruit that offers creative uses for culinary, and perhaps some health benefits to boot.

What is Buddha’s hand?

Buddha’s hand is natural variation of the regular citron (Citrus medica). Historians believe the fingered variety was brought to China by way of India thanks to traveling Buddhists and hence, the origin of its name. Also known as fingered citron, this yellow fruit splits in segments that look like fingers.

The scientific name for it is Citrus medica var. sarcodactylis. It’s a small tree, ranging from 8 to 15 feet in height, while the dwarf variety is just 5 feet. With a USDA hardiness zone requirement of 10 to 11 to grow successfully, the Buddha’s hand tree is not frost tolerant. Temperatures can’t drop below 40°F (4.4°C).

Its exact history is a bit murky, though evidence points to it making its way to the Far East sometime after the 4th century AD. Following the collapse of the famous Tang dynasty, historical records from the empire of Min (909 to 945 AD) confirm it was in existence and considered to be an important fruit.

There are yellow and green citron fruits of different shapes, with this being the most exotic.
In Traditional Chinese medicine and folklore, it is believed to symbolize happiness, longevity, and wealth. Giving a potted Buddha’s hand tree as a gift for Chinese New Year is believed to bring good fortune to the recipient. It was and still is used as a sacrificial offering at their temples.

In fact, it is such a prized object there, the plant gets depicted in jade, ivory, and wood carvings.

The Japanese Buddhist monk, Myoan Eisai, is believed to be responsible for bringing the tea plant from China to his homeland, where the art of how to make matcha would be born. No one knows who brought the citron Buddha hand to Japan, but it has also been held in high esteem there for centuries. They call it bushukan and it’s popular for their New Years, too.

Sources: Food in China: A Cultural and Historical Inquiry (1) (2)

What does it taste like?

Buddha’s hand fruit is edible. The best way to describe its flavor is that of a lemon peel, but without any sourness or bitterness. There is a hint of sweetness, though it’s subtle. With no flesh, pulp, or seeds inside, the fingered citron is practically all rind. There’s no juice or moisture as you experience with most fruits.

Even though the taste is pleasant, the texture is not. It’s like chewing raw eggplant, minus the bitterness. That’s why it’s usually used in recipes rather than eaten as a raw, whole fruit.

What does it smell like?

The smell of fresh Buddha’s hand is lemony and floral. Everyone seems to love it, men included. Setting a whole fruit on the kitchen counter or as a decorative ornament in a room will keep that area smelling like lemon and lavender for up to two weeks’ time.

Many uses of the fruit are based on its pleasant fragrance.

Buddha’s hand fruit

One of which is using it as a table centerpiece, preferably with a few leaves still attached. It serves as both a decorative ornament and an air freshener.

A way to enjoy the fragrance without the fruit is to use Buddha’s hand essential oil. It can be made by steam distilling fruit and extracting the volatile oils. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to buy this from Doterra, Plant Therapy and the like. It’s not made commercially by those brands nor others.

The next best thing will be oils and fragrances made using citron fruit. After all, both are the same Citrus medica species, albeit different strains.

There is an excellent smelling body lotion from Crabtree & Evelyn that’s scented with citron, honey, and coriander. You can get it on Amazon.

Nutrition facts

As with many rare fruits and vegetables, you won’t find an entry for it among the 225,000 foods in the USDA National Nutrient Database.

Whether it’s scientific literature or that of major suppliers like Frieda’s, no one has published the complete nutritional information for Buddha’s hand. Nor is a company like Frieda’s obligated to do so, because there’s a reporting loophole for produce.

Since the facts haven’t been published for Citrus medica var. sarcodactylis, the best nutritional guidance comes from Citrus medica (regular citron fruit). It doesn’t have fingers but it’s makeup is comparable.

Based on that, these would be the expected nutrition facts for Buddha’s hand citron.

Buddha’s Hand Nutrition Facts
Serving Size: 100 g (about 3.5 ounces)
Calories 29
% Daily Value* % Daily Value
Total Fat 0.3 g 0% Vitamin A 0.01 mg <1%
Saturated Fat 0 g 0% Thiamine (B1) 0.5 mg 33%
Trans Fat 0 g Riboflavin (B2) 0.3 mg 23%
Sodium 0mg Niacin (B3) 0.13 mg <1%
Total Carbs. 9.3 g 3% Vitamin C 368 mg 409%
Fiber 4 g 14% Calcium 36 mg 3.6%
Total Sugars 2.5g Phosphorus 16mg 1.6%
Protein 1.1 g Iron 0.55mg 3%
*Percent Daily Values (DV) are based on a 2,000 calorie diet
Whether it’s fingered citron or a more regular-looking variety, since they’re basically thick rinds without flesh, the calorie count and grams of sugar will be low, while their fiber content is high.

The 29 calories for a 3.5 oz. fruit will come with around 9g of carbs but very little sugar (fructose).

Because not even citrons are in the USDA database, these facts have to be sourced from other sources. (3) (4)

Health benefits

In Traditional Chinese medicine, dried Buddha’s hand is called Fo Shou or its full pharmaceutical name, Fructus Citri Sarcodactylis.

According to their beliefs, it helps regulate Qi (vital energy) and does so in the liver, lungs, stomach, and spleen. They say it helps to dissolve phlegm and relieve coughing. Fo Shou tea and tinctures are the way it’s typically used in TCM. (5)

In western medicine and science, very little has been published on this plant. It’s not proven to work for anything. These are the health benefits of Buddha hand which have some preliminary research on them:

Nerve regeneration

Scientists in Taiwan have found that when cultured cells were exposed to a water-based Buddha’s hand extract, there was higher expression in fibroblast growth factor (FGF-2). This promoted the growth of Schwann cells, which make the sheath surrounding neuronal axons. The more extract used, the higher the FGF-2 production they saw. (6)

Lower blood sugar

This has never been studied in humans, but researchers have reported that the essential oils in Buddha’s hand appeared to have beneficial effects on blood glucose levels in rats. The main chemical constituents inside the essential oil are:

24% d-limonene
71% gamma-terpenene
40% alpha-pinene
88% beta-pinene
While none of these are unique compounds, the profiles of common essential oils don’t have them in these same percentages. (7)

Anti-inflammatory

South Koreans report that the fruit’s essential oil suppressed inflammation through several mechanisms.

When cultured cells were treated with it, the expression of several enzymatic reactions that cause inflammation were favorably influenced:

prostaglandin E2 (PGE2)
cyclooxygenase 2 (COX-2)
tumor necrosis factor-a (TNF-a)
interleukin (IL)-1ß
IL-6
NF-KB
JNK
ERK
Some of these anti-inflammatory effects are shared with the capsaicin content in hot sauce. (8)

The Chinese report that the stem and bark extracts also reduce inflammation in lab tests. (9)

Alleviating lump in throat

Globus pharyngis is the medical term for the constant feeling of having a lump in your throat. It’s the feeling you get from a pill or phlegm that’s stuck there. Often times though, nothing is stuck at all, as it’s really just the nerves there giving a false signal.

At Yangzhou University in China, 46 patients were treated with the TCM remedy Fo Shou made from the fruit. The dosage was taken 3 times per day and found to be more effective at alleviating this side effect versus the sore-throat treatment it was pitted against. (10)

How to eat Buddha’s hand

Buddha cut in halves

The easiest way to eat Buddha’s hand is to cut it in half as you would a lemon. The thick yellow skin is very nutritious, though eating high amounts may give you a stomach ache. That’s why if you’re eating it raw, you only want small amounts of the skin remaining given how fibrous it is.

sliced Buddha

Cutting it in very thin slices, like an onion, is a good way to not be overwhelmed by the dull and chewy texture. It also minimizes the amount of yellow rind you are consuming per serving.

diced fingered citron without skin

If you want to remove the yellow rind entirely, then cutting it into chunks like you would butternut squash is the best way to accomplish that. You can’t skin it like a cucumber or carrot given it’s odd shape.

Even though the flavor of fingered citron is enjoyable – like a lemon without sourness – it’s not a fruit you will want to eat a bowl of. The best use for it is as a presentation piece when you want to wow the people you are serving.

Rather than cutting lengthwise, slicing it like starfruit so you can see the shape will preserve some of its exotic appearance.

grated fingered citron

The entire fruit of Buddha’s hand can be grated, much like carrots. These shavings can be used to garnish desserts and as a substitute for any recipe that incorporates lemon zest.

Storing the fruit

How to store Buddha’s hand is the same as lemons. If you haven’t cut them yet, then they can be stored at room temperature as long as they are kept away from sources of heat, such as your furnace vent and stove. Don’t store on top of the fridge, because that surface gets hot too.

Refrigerating the fruit will prolong its freshness, however the cold may change the flavor slightly, especially if it’s stored for several days or longer. Remember this tree normally grows in a climate that never drops below 40°F and your refrigerator is a couple degrees cooler than that.

Once it has been cut, refrigeration will be required to avoid the growth of bacteria. Keep it in a closed container to avoid it drying out.

Unlike iceberg lettuce or apples, there is limited water content to begin with, which means that freezing Buddha’s hand is an option for storage. Rather than freeze the whole fruit, your best bet is to first slice, dice, or grate it into the pieces you want and then put those in Ziploc freezer bags.

What to do with Buddha’s hand

1. Use as an edible novelty for parties

Because it’s so expensive, it’s kind of wasteful to use it in a manner that hides its unique appearance. If that’s happening, using plain citron fruit will be cheaper and similar for taste, smell, and the nutrition facts.

This is why however you choose to use it, you will want to showcase its appearance in the process.

fingertips of Buddha’s hand

Looking like a gnarled hand naturally lends itself to Halloween parties. Or a fun birthday bash. Keep one of them intact, with another sliced into small pieces on the same platter. Preferably sliced like a starfruit, so the novel shape is reiterated.

2. Cook with vegetables

Cooking with Buddha’s hand fruit works best in savory dishes. It adds a lemony zest flavor and the sautéing will make the texture much more palatable, similar to the transformation of eggplant when it’s cooked. Though unlike eggplant, there’s no prep work needed to remove bitterness.

Adding fingered citron to steamed tofu, rice, fish, and pasta are all possibilities. Get creative because any recipe that you think will work with lemon zest will work with Buddha’s hand.

3. Make an herbal tea

With so little liquid inside, you can’t juice it. Buddha hand fruit tea is the only viable way to drink it. The recipe calls for boiling the fruit in water for 10-20 minutes and then screening out the parts so you are left with just the lemon flavored water.

The tea is particularly useful for the odds and ends pieces you have leftover from something else. It’s a way to not waste any of this expensive fruit.

4. Boil for jam and marmalade

It’s a lot of work, but if you’re into making homemade jams and fruit preserves, this is an excellent choice – either by itself or mixed with other fruits.

Before you experiment with a Buddha’s hand recipe for marmalade, it would probably be a good idea to know what it tastes like. After all, since this fruit costs around $10 (or more) a piece, you may be spending $100 just on this one ingredient to make a couple jars!

No one sells marmalade that uses it but to get an idea for what it would taste like, buy some citron marmalade. We have yet to see it for sale at stores in the United States or Canada, though you can pick up a jar on Amazon.

5. Infusion for vodka and cocktails

Absolut Citron has been one of the brand’s bestsellers since its introduction in the 80’s. The official description says “citrus flavor” so who knows if there’s even citron fruit inside. It may be just lemons.

No one sells it but you could make some Buddha’s hand vodka yourself. Dice up the fruit and put it in a sealed Fido jar with an unflavored vodka of your choosing. Store it in the fridge for 7 days and then strain the solids. The recipe is that simple.

Cocktails can be made with it too. Rather than a wedge of a lemon or lime, a piece of fingered citron will certainly be the conversation starter.

6. Candied fruit

What is candied Buddha’s hand? It may be the most popular way this fruit is eaten.

Cut one large fruit into small chunks or strips.
In a medium pot, combine with ½ cup of sugar and 1 cup of water.
Simmer for 30 minutes.
Strain excess liquid and lay pieces on parchment paper to dry.
For best presentation, roll in powdered sugar prior to serving.
If you’re using sugar of any kind, you can’t kid yourself and say that candied Buddha’s hand is healthy. Though aeast it packs a fair amount of fiber. It’s certainly not any worse for you than most other varieties of dried fruit. Dried cranberries and cherries you buy at the store always have added sugar, unfortunately.

If you want to make a fingered citron candy that’s actually healthy, instead of using sugar in the recipe try monk fruit.

7. Air freshener

Who says you have to eat it on day one? Before embarking on the edible uses for Buddha’s hand, enjoy its natural perfume.

In China, a Buddha’s hand flower arrangement makes use of it for both aesthetics and scent. In your house, it could be something as simple as having a place in your fruit bowl.

Where to buy

Buddha hand fruit at grocery store in California

It’s one of the hardest fruits to find for sale, at least in societies dominated by Western culture, such as the US and UK. In both of these countries, you may be able to find Buddha’s hand at a Chinese supermarket which carries exotic fruits.

In the US you really only encounter these markets in places like Southern California (e.g. 99 Ranch Market) and New York City (H Mart). There are others though, including in mid-sized cities that have a significant Chinese or Japanese population.

In London, try Loon Fung supermarket.

Whole Foods has been known to carry finger citron, though we have yet to see it at their Los Angeles locations.

Surprisingly when in-season, it’s sold at Ralph’s, which is the California arm of Kroger.

When is Buddha’s hand in season? Assuming it’s being grown in the northern hemisphere, the season will be October through January. Availability outside of those months will be limited to greenhouse growers and exports from the southern hemisphere, like Australia and New Zealand.

The cost to buy a Buddha’s hand fruit in the US, UK, and even China is quite expensive relative to common fruits and vegetables. At the Ralph’s in Manhattan Beach, CA the price is $10 per fruit, though most places sell by the pound. If by quantity, buy the biggest on the shelf!

PLU 4391Before you go driving around town on a wild goose chase to find them, we recommend calling the store ahead of time that you think might have it.

The PLU for Buddha’s hand is 4391. That’s for conventionally grown.

Frieda’s seems to be the biggest supplier in the US. With the exception of an independent grower at a local farmer’s market, no one is selling organic.

Dried Buddha hand should be available at TCM shops under the name Fo Shou (佛手).

How to grow

Since the fresh fruit is so hard to find for sale, perhaps you would prefer a tree in your backyard!

map of USDA hardiness zones in the United States

Growing requires zone 10 to 11, with the latter really being the more accurate representation. Even for zone 10 you are limited to Hawaii and the southernmost parts of California, Texas, and Florida.

That’s one of the reason you never see Buddha’s hand fruit seeds for sale at your local nursery. Another reason is that this strain of citron has been bred to produce virtually seedless fruit.

It’s a myth to say the seeds don’t exist at all, but they’re hard to obtain from the fresh fruit itself. This is why cuttings are better and ideally, a seedling is best.

Where to buy Buddha’s hand tree? Mail-order may be your only option.

One Green World sells a dwarf tree that begins bearing fruit 1-2 years after planting and its mature height is just 3-5 feet. They even market it for zone 9 growing. The bad news is they say “We can’t ship citrus to California, Arizona, and Florida” due to the laws.

Whether dwarf or regular, if you get your hands on one of these fingered citron strains, make sure you plant the tree or seed in full sunlight and water it regularly, as you would a lemon tree.

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These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
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 June 15, 2021 Jagatheesan Chandrasekharan Reply Your comment is awaiting moderation.  From KUSHINARA NIBBANA BHUMI PAGODA -Free Online Analytical Research and Practice University for “Discovery of the Univerasal Volunteers with the Awareness Universe” (FOARPU4DUVAU) in 117 Classical Languages. May we appeal to the List of all UNIVERSAL VOLUNTEER ORGANISATIONS striving hard to
PLANT VEGETABLES & DWARF FRUIT BEARING TREES IN POTS ALL OVER THE WORLD AS PRACTICED BY SAMRAT ASHOKA as
Said by an Awakened One with Awareness
“Hunger is the worst illness, where 4 times Chief Minister Ms Mayawati who became eligible to be the Prime Minister with her excellent governance of Uttar Pradesh promised to reestablish Ashokan rule along with the farmers
compounded existence the worst suffering or aliment (dukkha) with ending of ailments ( dukkha Nirodha) May we give importance to Awakened One’s teachings in this angle for the peace, happiness, welfare of all sentient and non sentient beings like the birds not depending on anyone so that all may attain Eternal Bliss as their Final Goal.   

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https://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/buddhas-hand-fruit-recipes

What Can You Do with a Buddha’s Hand?

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I spent $13.52 on a single piece of fruit, so I was darned sure I was going to get my money’s worth. I’ve always balked at buying Buddha’s hands. What does a person actually do with such a thing? And what even is a Buddha’s hand? It’s some sort of citrus, obviously, and a short-season one at that. But it’s not as if you can just roll up to your local grocery story at any time of year and impulse-buy them to futz around with. So I did my homework. Then I got to zesting.A Buddha’s hand is a multi-fingered citron that, unlike a lemon or orange, is juice-free and straight-up peel and spongy pith. While this might seem like an extravagant bummer of a fruit, the magic of the Buddha’s hand is that the whole thing is edible. The notion of wasting food is abhorrent to me (thank you, Catholic school nuns), so I was thrilled to learn that in addition to the heady outer peel, the pith is much less bitter than that of its juicy, spherical brethren, and can be sliced raw or cooked and used in salads, baked goods, preserves, pickles, infusions, or whatever strikes your fancy.And that peel. A swipe of the Microplane or grater releases its bright, potent perfume, and the resultant zest brings lift and light to vegetables, vinegar, baked goods, and even booze. In the course of an afternoon, I used up every single scrap of this pricey produce making Buddha’s hand salt, sugar, ‘cello, preserves, and syrup. And if I could get my hands on another, I’d do it again.Buddha’s Hand CelloLove lemoncello? Buddha’s hand cello is an extra-aromatic alternative to this high-proof citrus infusion. Using a vegetable peeler or sharp knife, remove the rind in generous strips, working finger by finger if you must. Place those strips in a clear, tightly-lidded vessel and top them with a grain neutral spirit (like Everclear) or a 100-proof vodka. Drain the whole 750-milliliter bottle if you feel so moved. Close tightly, and let that mixture steep for at least 4 days, or 2-4 weeks if you have the patience. When it’s sufficiently perfumed (you’ll know), strain out the solids with a fine mesh strainer or a clean linen towel. Make a simple syrup with 2 cups of water and 2 cups of sugar simmered together in a saucepan until thickened. Let that cool to room temperature, then pour half of it into the alcohol, stir thoroughly, and taste. Add more syrup until it’s to your desired level of sweetness, then pour it into a lidded container, let it steep for two more weeks, and serve.Note: Leftover syrup from the preserves recipe below makes the flavor even more robust.Buddha’s Hand Sugar and SaltZest the Buddha’s hand peel and place it on a baking sheet in your oven, set at the lowest possible temperature (if it has a keep warm setting, that’s ideal), and bake for 20 minutes. If the zest seems dry, remove it from the oven. Otherwise, check on it in 5-minute increments. To make sugar: Combine 2 tablespoons of dried zest with 1 cup of sugar. Let the mixture sit for about 30 minutes, and if it’s turned to sludge, add more sugar. Store in a sealed container, and let the flavors meld for about a week before using to top baked goods, make a rim for cocktail glasses, sprinkle on fruit, or seriously—just sniff. It’s absolute heaven.To make salt: Combine 4 tablespoons of dried zest with 1 cup of coarse or chunky salt (I prefer Maldon). Shake together or use a mortar and pestle or a few buzzes in a food processor to combine. Sprinkle it on vegetables or poultry, mix it into dressings, or use it anywhere that could use a hint of sunshine. Buddha’s Hand Preserves

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அதற்கான அறிவியல் பெயர் சிட்ரஸ் மெடிகா வர். sarcodactylis. இது ஒரு சிறிய மரம், 8 முதல் 15 அடி உயரம் வரை, குள்ள வகை 5 அடி மட்டுமே. வெற்றிகரமாக வளர யு.எஸ்.டி.ஏ கடினத்தன்மை மண்டலத்தின் தேவை 10 முதல் 11 வரை, புத்தரின் கை மரம் உறைபனி சகிப்புத்தன்மையற்றது அல்ல. வெப்பநிலை 40 ° F (4.4 ° C) க்கு கீழே குறைய முடியாது.
புத்தரின் கை வழக்கமான சிட்ரானின் (சிட்ரஸ் மெடிகா) இயல்பான மாறுபாடு ஆகும்.

பயணித்த ப ists த்தர்களுக்கு நன்றி செலுத்தும் விதமாக இந்தியா வழியாக விரல் வகை சீனாவிற்கு கொண்டு வரப்பட்டதாக வரலாற்றாசிரியர்கள் நம்புகின்றனர், எனவே அதன் பெயரின் தோற்றம். விரல் சிட்ரான் என்றும் அழைக்கப்படும் இந்த மஞ்சள் பழம் விரல்களைப் போன்ற பகுதிகளாகப் பிரிக்கிறது.

மேற்கு தம்பரம் சென்னையின் 10 அமல் நகருக்கு 6 அன்புள்ள புத்தர் கை பழ மரங்களை அனுப்பவும். அதற்கான செலவை எனக்குத் தெரியப்படுத்துங்கள். ஜெகதீசன் சந்திரசேகரன் குறித்து

Historians believe the fingered variety was brought to China by way of India thanks to traveling Buddhists and hence, the origin of its name. Also known as fingered citron, this yellow fruit splits in segments that look like fingers.

Please send 6 dearf Buddha hand fruit trees to 10 Amal Nagar, West Tambaram Chennai. let me know the cost for the same. with regards JagatheesanChandrasekharan

https://youtu.be/wKjibTZofzg

Shivaji Ganeshan as Socrstese in Raja Rani and Samrat Ashoka in Annain aanai

ராஜா ராணி படத்தில் சிவாஜி கணேஷனும், அன்னெய்ன் அனாயில் சாம்ராட் அசோகாவும்

https://youtu.be/iHwXc6G-kew

Shivaji Ganeshan as Socrstese in Raja Rani and Samrat Ashoka in Annain aanai

ராஜா ராணி படத்தில் சிவாஜி கணேஷனும், அன்னெய்ன் அனாயில் சாம்ராட் அசோகாவும்

https://evoiceofhumanrightswatch.wordpress.com/2016/11/16/mr-modi-corporate-criminals/

Mr.Modi & Corporate Criminals | e - Voice For Justice
Search domain evoiceofhumanrightswatch.wordpress.comhttps://evoiceofhumanrightswatch.wordpress.com/2016/11/16/mr-modi-corporate-criminals/
PETITION UNDER ARTICLE 12 to ARTICLE 35 & ARTICLE 51A OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA FOR ISSUANCE OF A WRIT IN THE NATURE OF. MANDAMUS UNDER ARTICLE 32 & ARTICLE 226 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA. To , Hon’ble The Chief Justice of India and His Lordship’s Companion. Justices of the Supreme Court of India.

E – VOICE FOR JUSTICE
enews weekly
HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr.Modi & Corporate Criminals
16/11/2016NAGARAJA M R

S.O.S e – Voice For Justice – e-news weekly
Spreading the light of humanity & freedom

Editor: Nagaraja.M.R.. Vol.12..Issue.47….….26/11/2016

Editorial : NO AMNESTY to Back Money Launderers

– CORPORATE CRIMINALS / CORPORATE TERRORISTS / TAX THIEVES RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL ILLS IN INDIA

In India , a small shop owner to big industrialist have mastered the art of TAX EVASION . their teachers – some corrupt tax officials & auditors. The black money thus created is causing inflation, feeding the mafia , underworld. Some industrialists lobby ( bribe ) with the government & gets favourable laws enacted. This black money is the main source of funds for political parties , religious bodies & terrorist outfits.

The recent raids by C.B.I & KARNATAKA LOKAYUKTHA have proved how the tax officials have become multi-millionaires. The sad part is that some of the police officials who are on deputation to C.B.I & LOKAYUKTHA themselves are utterly corrupt.

This scourge can only be cured by corporate accountability intoto. However , all the industrialists , traders who are demanding for more flexible labour reforms , economic reforms , infrastructure , etc are not at all concerned about their own accountability with respect to tax , environment , other laws. The MNCs coming to India are not coming here for best Indian talents or infrastructure alone. In their own countries they are feeling the
heat of strict environment laws , consumer laws , share holder disclosures , corporate accountability. Some of these MNCs are being kicked out of their countries , by it’s own people .These MNCs are aware that in India , by greasing the palms environment laws , labour laws , tax laws , etc everything can be flouted , cases in courts can be dragged on for years . share holder disclosures , corporate transparency is minimum.

However when a concerned citizen complains about the crimes of guilty corporates , organizations or corrupt public servants , immediate action is not taken. The file is kept pending for months , years together , allowing the criminals to manipulate all the evidences , records , ground situations. Finally even if action is taken guilty will be let out due to favorable evidences , there are chances that the concerned citizen himself is falsely implicated & put behind bars . in all such cases all the involved parties must be subjected to lie detector tests .

Black Money & Crime are inter twined , two faces of the same coin . Amnesty must not be given to black money launderers , it is nothing but legalizing the crimes of big criminals & crimes which are sources of black money. Thereby , government is giving legal sanction to those criminals to commit more crimes to accumulate black money and government itself is waiving off it’s duty to legally prosecute those black money launderers for the crimes which are the sources of those ill gotten money. As per the constitution , government must do it’s duty to uphold law , it cann’t waive off it’s own duties. If a government cann’t do it’s duty , it must get out of the seat.

Police , Government , Judges spend thousands of rupees public money to legally prosecute a small thief caught for stealing hundred rupees , where as now letting out big time looters who have stolen millions of rupees public money , who have earned money through swindling banks , share holders , earned money by illegal money lending , rowdyism , drug trafficking , human trafficking , etc. It is against principle of equitable justice , law. If the government is not able to catch , prosecute these black money launderers , it is unfit to be in the seat.

Bottomline : development is a must , it must be all around . but not at the cost of majority to make a few richer. Law of the Land is one and same for all Tom , Dick & Harry.

Jai Hind. Vande Mataram.

Your’s sincerely,

Nagaraja.M.R.

PIL – NO AMNESTY to Black Money Launderers

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA ORIGINAL JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL WRIT PETITION NO. OF 2015

IN THE MATTER OF

NAGARAJA . M.R

editor SOS e Clarion of Dalit & SOS e Voice for Justice
# LIG 2 , No 761 ,, HUDCO First Stage , Laxmikantanagar ,
Hebbal , Mysore – 570017 , Karnataka State
.
….Petitioner

Versus

Cabinet Secretary , Government of India & Others

….Respondents

PETITION UNDER ARTICLE 12 to ARTICLE 35 & ARTICLE 51A OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA FOR ISSUANCE OF A WRIT IN THE NATURE OF MANDAMUS UNDER ARTICLE 32 & ARTICLE 226 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA.

To ,
Hon’ble The Chief Justice of India and His Lordship’s Companion
Justices of the Supreme Court of India.

The Humble petition of the Petitioner above named.

MOST RESPECTFULLY SHOWETH :
1. Facts of the case:
“Power will go to the hands of rascals, , rogues and freebooters. All Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight among themselves for
power and will be lost in political squabbles . A day would come when even air & water will be taxed.” Sir Winston made this statement in the House of Commons just before the independence of India & Pakistan. Sadly , the forewarning of Late Winston Churchill has been proved right by some of our criminal , corrupt public servants.

2. Corruption is rampant in tax enforcement , law enforcement agencies of the government.

3. In India , a small shop owner to big industrialist have mastered the art of TAX EVASION . their teachers – some corrupt tax officials & auditors. The black money thus created is causing inflation, feeding the mafia , underworld. Some industrialists lobby ( bribe ) with the government & gets favourable laws enacted. This black money is the main source of funds for political parties , religious bodies & terrorist outfits.

4. However when a concerned citizen complains about the crimes of guilty corporates , organizations or corrupt public servants , immediate action is not taken. The file is kept pending for months , years together , allowing the criminals to manipulate all the evidences , records , ground situations. Finally even if action is taken guilty will be let out due to favorable evidences , there are chances that the concerned citizen himself is falsely implicated & put behind bars . in all such cases all the involved parties must be subjected to lie detector tests .

2. Question(s) of Law:

Is it right for banks , tax authorities , government to let out fraudsters , guilty bank executives , guilty tax officials without criminal prosecution & recovery ?

3. Grounds:
Requests for equitable justice , Prosecution of master minds of financial frauds / tax evasions.

4. Averment:

Covering up Financial Frauds. Please read details at :

https://sites.google.com/site/sosevoiceforjustice/rbi—robberer-s-bureau-of-india ,

https://evoiceofhumanrightswatch.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/rbi-robberers-bureau-of-india/ ,

Hereby , I do request the honorable supreme court of India to consider this as a PIL for : “writ of Mandamus” and to issue instructions to the concerned public servants in the following cases to perform their duties & to answer the questions.

The Petitioner has sent many letters / appeals / petitions to supreme court of india & other courts through e-mail , DARPG website & through regular mail requesting them to consider those as PILs. But none ofthem were admitted , even acknowledgement for receipts were not given. See How duty conscious ,our judges are & see how our judges are sensitive towards life , liberty of citizens , commonmen & see howcareless our judges are towards anti national crimes , crimes worth crores of rupees. That the present petitioner has not filed any other petition (which are admitted by courts) in any High Court or the Supreme Court of India on the subject matter of the present petition.

PRAYER:
In the above premises, it is prayed that this Hon’ble Court may be pleased:
a . Hereby , I do request the honorable supreme court of India to consider this as a PIL for : “writ of Mandamus” and to issue instructions to the concerned public servants , Tax Authorities , Law Enforcement Agencies , RBI authorities in the following cases to perform their duties & to answer the below RTI questions.
b . to pass such other orders and further orders as may be deemed necessary on the facts and in the circumstances of the case.

c. To legally prosecute responsible bank executives & fraudsters.

d. To make it mandatory for all bank executives , tax officials including board members to make their income , wealth details public every year. This must be disclosed under RTI A ct.

e. To form a statutory mechanism to share information in real time ( through computer networking) about creditors , debtors , borrowers , policy holders , insurers , wealth managers , etc between all financial institutions like SEBI , RBI , IRDA , Banks , State and Central Government Tax Authorities etc. Creditor , debtor information must be disclosed under RTI Act.

f. To appoint a person from lending bank to loan availing companies to monitor it’s daily financial affairs.

g. To legally prosecute RBI Governor , Chief Justice of India & Union Finance Minister for aiding fund raisers of terrorists , underworld.

h. To order Government of India to accept our conditional offer of apprehending corporate terrorists.

i. To criminal legal prosecution against promoters of fraud companies , partners in their crimes supporting company executives and bank executives.

j. To order for recovery of money with interest & penalty , by confiscation of properties of such company promoters , their family properties , property of concerned bank executives , tax officials and most importantly PROPERTIES OF RBI GOVERNOR , UNION FINANCE MINISTER & CJI must be attached.

k. Black Money & Crime are inter twined , two faces of the same coin . Amnesty must not be given to black money launderers , it is nothing but legalizing the crimes of big criminals & crimes which are sources of black money. Thereby , government is giving legal sanction to those criminals to commit more crimes to accumulate black money and government itself is waiving off it’s duty to legally prosecute those black money launderers for the crimes which are the sources of those ill gotten money. As per the constitution , government must do it’s duty to uphold law , it cann’t waive off it’s own duties. If a government cann’t do it’s duty , it must get out of the seat.

l. Police , Government , Judges spend thousands of rupees public money to legally prosecute a small thief caught for stealing hundred rupees , where as now letting out big time looters who have stolen millions of rupees public money , who have earned money through swindling banks , share holders , earned money by illegal money lending , rowdyism , drug trafficking , human trafficking , etc. It is against principle of equitable justice , law. If the government is not able to catch , prosecute these black money launderers , it is unfit to be in the seat.

m. To immediately give a stay to the moves by government of india , giving amnesty to black money launderers from 01st June 2016. Also , annul such laws enacted by government of India.

FOR WHICH ACT OF KINDNESS, THE PETITIONER SHALL BE DUTY BOUND, EVER PRAY.

Kindly read full details at following web page :

https://sites.google.com/site/sosevoiceforjustice/rbi—robberer-s-bureau-of-india ,

https://evoiceofhumanrightswatch.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/rbi-robberers-bureau-of-india/ ,

Dated : 14th May 2016 ………………….FILED BY: NAGARAJA.M.R.

Place : Mysuru , India……………………. PETITIONER-IN-PERSON

(PDF) hunger and malnutrition in India | Naresh Saxena …
Search domain academia.eduhttps://www.academia.edu/8106593/hunger_and_malnutrition_in_India
India is one of the three countries where the hunger index between 1996 and 2011 has gone up from 22.9 to 23.7, while 78 out of the 81 developing countries studied, including Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Kenya, Nigeria, Myanmar, Uganda,

(PDF) India Chronic Poverty Report. Towards Solutions and …
Search domain academia.eduhttps://www.academia.edu/23326123/India_Chronic_Poverty_Report_Towards_Solutions_and_New_Compacts_in_a_Dynamic_Context
India Chronic Poverty Report. Towards Solutions and New Compacts in a Dynamic Context. 2011. Shashanka Bhide. Download PDF. Download Full PDF Package. This paper. A short summary of this paper. 35 Full PDFs related to this paper. READ PAPER. India Chronic Poverty Report. Towards Solutions and New Compacts in a Dynamic Context

Unique IAS academy in coimbatore,tnpsc,coaching center …
Search domain uniqueiasacademy.comhttps://www.uniqueiasacademy.com/upsc-in.php?id=375
Issues related to Poverty and Hunger Introduction While addressing the Constituent Assembly in 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru had said, “This achievement (Independence) is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the great triumphs and achievements that await us… the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity.

Full text of “Commentary On The Constitution Of India …
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An icon used to represent a menu that can be toggled by interacting with this icon.

The politics of scarcity: Conceptualising the current food …
Search domain researchgate.nethttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/257652468_The_politics_of_scarcity_Conceptualising_the_current_food_security_crisis_in_southern_Africa
The domestic production of fruits and vegetables is a source of livelihood for at least 10% of the population in the foothills, lowlands, and Senqu River Valley. … where hunger, malnutrition …

[Solved] Week Five: Innovation & Change Innovations …
Search domain coursehero.comhttps://www.coursehero.com/tutors-problems/Sociology/8986607-Directions-for-Supplemental-Material-Step-One-Find-one-1-piece-of/
India, Mexico, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and other African countries are selected as contexts to report on multiple aspects of social change. The snippet of the research discussed in this Volume which has themes at the interface of technology and social change is presented in this Chapter.

Export Performance and Competitiveness of Indian Mango
Search domain researchgate.nethttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/324246713_Export_Performance_and_Competitiveness_of_Indian_Mango
Punjab recorded an annual rate of growth of 1.14 percent. The area and yield increased at rates of 0.38 percent and. 0.76 percent, respectively, during the same period. The. two factors, that is

ndia’s Opinion
Search domain indiasopinion.inhttps://www.indiasopinion.in/?cat=-1
Such a finding would render the president’s Article II powers all but superfluous, Judge White wrote in his 25-page order. The judge noted that the text of Article I and more than two centuries of legislative practice and judicial precedent make clear, the Constitution vests Congress, not the President, with the power to set immigration policy.

Relevant Article,section in Constitution of India and other countries on hunger and alivation of poverty by producing vegetables and fruits

PIL – BANK ROBBERIES by bank executives

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA ORIGINAL JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL WRIT PETITION NO. OF 2015

IN THE MATTER OF

NAGARAJA . M.R

editor SOS e Clarion of Dalit & SOS e Voice for Justice
# LIG 2 , No 761 ,, HUDCO First Stage , Laxmikantanagar ,
Hebbal , Mysore – 570017 , Karnataka State
.
….Petitioner

Versus

Honourable Governor , Reserve Bank of India (RBI) & Others

….Respondents

PETITION UNDER ARTICLE 12 to ARTICLE 35 & ARTICLE 51A OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA FOR ISSUANCE OF A WRIT IN THE NATURE OF MANDAMUS UNDER ARTICLE 32 & ARTICLE 226 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA.

To ,
Hon’ble The Chief Justice of India and His Lordship’s Companion
Justices of the Supreme Court of India.

The Humble petition of the Petitioner above named.

2. Eventhough , I have repeatedly appealed to RBI authorities since years seeking justice regarding illegalities , irregularities in recruitment , currency handling , currency theft , etc @ RBI , they didn’t provide justice at all.

3. For a common man it is a herculean task to get Rs.5000 loan from a bank , but rich & connected get lakhs , crores of rupees loan quite easily from banks , how ?

4. When a common man , farmer defaults to pay loan of few thousands of rupees bank immediately dispatches loan recovery agents / Rowdies , seizes his property & auctions and recover their dues to last penny. Farmers are committing suicide unable to pay loans to escape from ignominy .

5. Huge companies get crores of rupees loan from banks eventhough basically the project report itself is at fault , not viable. Siphons off company resources by insider trading to their sister concerns although bank representatives are very much their on the board of companies.

6 . Such companies default on loan dues to bank , but no recovery agents / rowdies are sent by banks. Finally the company becomes bust.

7. Bank looses money , the company is declared as NON PERFORMING ASSET and government + bank waives off interest or else loan itself.

8. End looser the public whose money went down the drain , profiteers – company promoters , executives and bank manager. No recovery from their personal , family properties why ?

9. Eventhough , I have repeatedly appealed to RBI authorities , Union Finance Ministry since years seeking information under RTI Act regarding illegalities , irregularities in RBI , Various banks , RBI Note Press ( BRBNMPL ) , etc , the RBI authorities have evaded answering our questions lest the TRUTH come out. Supreme court of India specifically Chief Justice of India were also approached to order RBI , Union Finance Ministry to disclose information to us in public interest. But SCI , CJI also failed to do their duties.

10. The money involved here is public money , it is nobody’s papa’s money.

11. These swindled monies are finding it’s way to under world , Mafia & Terror outfits. This proves RBI Governor , Union Finance Minister and Chief Justice of India are least bothered to safe guard PUBLIC MONEY. They are least bothered about our national security.

12. We have offered our conditional services to RBI , Union Finance Ministry & SCI to apprehend corporate criminals , to recover money while the concerned officials have failed to do their duties. Till date RBI , SCI , Government have failed to respond to our offer.

13. We SOS e Clarion of Dalit & SOS e Voice for Justice once again offer our conditional services to authorities , RBI , SCI to legally apprehend corporate criminals , tax evaders & corrupt bank executives and to recover monies from them. Are RBI , SCI & Union Finance Ministry Ready to catch tax thieves , corporate criminals , corporate terrorists ? Are they ready to utilize our services ?

14. By , shielding corporate criminals RBI , SCI , Union finance ministry are shielding corporate criminals to continue financial aid to terrorist outfits , underworld & mafia. Thereby , RBI Governor , Union Finance Minister & CJI , Supreme Court of India have also become parties to those crimes , they themselves have become criminals.

15. These Huge financial frauds , swindling for years cann’t happen repeatedly for years without tacit understanding , cooperation , collusion , connivance of RBI GOVERNOR and UNION FINANCE MINISTER. These crimes are spared from fair , timely legal trials with tacit support of Chief Justice of India.

16. These swindled money is destabilizing our economy , funding terrorist outfits , mafia & underworld. These are posing constant threat to our national security , integrity.

17. By financially supporting funding of criminals , terrorists RBI GOVERNOR , UNION FINANCE MINSTER & CHIEF JUSTICE OF INDIA themselves have become anti nationals , criminals , terrorists.

2. Question(s) of Law:

Is it right for banks , government to let out fraudsters , bank executives without criminal prosecution & recovery ?

3. Grounds:
Requests for equitable justice , Prosecution of master minds of financial frauds.

4. Averment:

Covering up Financial Frauds. Please read details at :

https://sites.google.com/site/sosevoiceforjustice/rbi—robberer-s-bureau-of-india ,

https://evoiceofhumanrightswatch.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/rbi-robberers-bureau-of-india/ ,

PRAYER:
In the above premises, it is prayed that this Hon’ble Court may be pleased:
a . Hereby , I do request the honorable supreme court of India to consider this as a PIL for : “writ of Mandamus” and to issue instructions to the concerned public servants , RBI authorities in the following cases to perform their duties & to answer the below RTI questions.
b . to pass such other orders and further orders as may be deemed necessary on the facts and in the circumstances of the case.

c. To legally prosecute authorities of M/s RBI & M/s BRBNMPL , who denied job opportunities to me under the behest of criminals responsible for late PM Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

d. To legally prosecute responsible bank executives & fraudsters.

e. To make it mandatory for all bank executives including board members to make their income , wealth details public every year. This must be disclosed under RTI A ct.

f. To form a statutory mechanism to share information about creditors , debtors , borrowers , policy holders , insurers , wealth managers , etc between all financial institutions like SEBI , RBI , IRDA , Banks , etc. Creditor , debtor information must be disclosed under RTI Act.

g. To book criminal cases of Rowdyism , goondaism against rowdy loan recovery agents & respective bank managers.

h. To reopen cases of Currency exchange scandal @ RBI Bangalore incinerator and currency theft cases @ RBI currency note press , Mysuru. To also legally prosecute bank executives & CBI investigating officials who shielded original criminals in these cases.

i. To order full payment of unjustly withheld salary , gratuity , pension dues , etc to victimized RBI staff Mr. Ganapathi Hariram immediately.

j. To appoint a person from lending bank to loan availing companies to monitor it’s daily financial affairs.

k. To legally prosecute RBI Governor , Chief Justice of India & Union Finance Minister for aiding fund raisers of terrorists , underworld.

l. To order Government of India to accept our conditional offer of apprehending corporate terrorists.

m. To criminal legal prosecution against promoters of fraud companies , partners in their crimes supporting company executives and bank executives.

n. To order for recovery of money with interest & penalty , by confiscation of properties of such company promoters , their family properties , property of concerned bank executives and most importantly PROPERTIES OF RBI GOVERNOR , UNION FINANCE MINISTER & CJI must be attached.

FOR WHICH ACT OF KINDNESS, THE PETITIONER SHALL BE DUTY BOUND, EVER PRAY.

Kindly read full details at following web page :

https://sites.google.com/site/sosevoiceforjustice/rbi—robberer-s-bureau-of-india ,

https://evoiceofhumanrightswatch.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/rbi-robberers-bureau-of-india/ ,

Dated : 12th March 2016 ………………….FILED BY: NAGARAJA.M.R.

Place : Mysuru , India……………………. PETITIONER-IN-PERSON

PIL – Stop Robberies @ RBI by bank staff

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA ORIGINAL JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL WRIT PETITION NO. OF 2015

IN THE MATTER OF

NAGARAJA . M.R

editor SOS e Clarion of Dalit & SOS e Voice for Justice
# LIG 2 , No 761 ,, HUDCO First Stage , Laxmikantanagar ,
Hebbal , Mysore – 570017 , Karnataka State
.
….Petitioner

Versus

Honourable Governor , Reserve Bank of India (RBI) & Others

….Respondents

PETITION UNDER ARTICLE 12 to ARTICLE 35 & ARTICLE 51A OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA FOR ISSUANCE OF A WRIT IN THE NATURE OF MANDAMUS UNDER ARTICLE 32 & ARTICLE 226 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA.

To ,
Hon’ble The Chief Justice of India and His Lordship’s Companion
Justices of the Supreme Court of India. The Humble petition of the
Petitioner above named.

3. For a common man it is a herculean task to get Rs.5000 loan from a bank , but rich & connected get lakhs , crores of rupees loan quite easily from banks , how ?

6 . Such companies default on loan dues to bank , but no recovery agents / rowdies are sent by banks. Finally the company becomes bust.

7. Bank looses money , the company is declared as NON PERFORMING ASSET and government + bank waives off interest or else loan itself.

8. End looser the public whose money went down the drain , profiteers – company promoters , executives and bank manager. No recovery from their personal , family properties why ?

2. Question(s) of Law:

Is it right for banks , government to let out fraudsters without criminal prosecution ?

3. Grounds:
Requests for equitable justice , Prosecution of master minds of financial frauds.

4. Averment:

Covering up Financial Frauds. Please read details at :

https://sites.google.com/site/sosevoiceforjustice/rbi—robberer-s-bureau-of-india ,

https://evoiceofhumanrightswatch.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/rbi-robberers-bureau-of-india/ ,

PRAYER:
In the above premises, it is prayed that this Hon’ble Court may be pleased:
a . Hereby , I do request the honorable supreme court of India to consider this as a PIL for : “writ of Mandamus” and to issue instructions to the concerned public servants , RBI authorities in the following cases to perform their duties & to answer the questions.
b . to pass such other orders and further orders as may be deemed necessary on the facts and in the circumstances of the case.

c. To legally prosecute authorities of M/s RBI & M/s BRBNMPL , who denied job opportunities to me under the behest of criminals responsible for late PM Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

FOR WHICH ACT OF KINDNESS, THE PETITIONER SHALL BE DUTY BOUND, EVER PRAY.

Kindly read full details at following web page :

https://sites.google.com/site/sosevoiceforjustice/rbi—robberer-s-bureau-of-india ,

https://evoiceofhumanrightswatch.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/rbi-robberers-bureau-of-india/ ,

Dated : 23rd July 2015 ………………….FILED BY: NAGARAJA.M.R.

Place : Mysuru , India…………………….PETITIONER-IN-PERSON

4-month window to declare black money opens on June 1: Jaitley

The four-month window for declaring domestic blackmoney will open on June 1 and those opting to come clean by paying 45 per cent tax and penalty will not be subject to scrutiny and enquiry by tax department.

The Income Declaration Scheme 2016 will remain in force till September 30 for filing of declarations and payments towards taxes, surcharge and penalty must be made latest by November 30, the Finance Ministry said in a release.

“No scrutiny and enquiry under the Income-tax Act or the Wealth tax Act (no abolished) shall be undertaken in respect of such declarations.

“Immunity from prosecution under the Income-tax Act and Wealth Tax Act is also provided along with immunity from the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988 subject to transfer of asset to actual owner within the period specified in the Rules,” it said.

The scheme was announced by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the Budget with an aim to fish out black money from the domestic economy. Earlier, the government had come out with similar scheme for Indian holding undisclosed income abroad.

The scheme will apply to undisclosed income whether in the form of investment in assets or otherwise, pertaining to Financial Year 2015-16 or earlier, the Ministry said.

“Under the Scheme, income as declared by the eligible persons, would be taxed at the rate of 30 per cent plus a ‘Krishi Kalyan Cess’ of 25 per cent on the taxes payable and a penalty at the rate of 25 per cent of the taxes payable, thereby totalling to 45 per cent of the income declared under the scheme,” the Ministry said.

INDIA`S BLACK MONEY IN SWISS BANK

This is not so surprising .India is the world`s most corrupt country.Corruption is not new in India.Recently due to international pressure, Swiss government agreed to disclose the names of the account holders only if the respective government formally asked for it.

Black money in Swiss banks — Swiss Banking Association report, 2006 details bank deposits in the territory of Switzerland by nationals of following countries:
Top five
India—- $1,456 billion
Russia —$ 470 billion
UK ——-$390 billion
Ukraine – $100 billion
China —–$ 96 billion

India has more money in Swiss bank than all the other countries combined.Second best Russia has 4 times lesser deposit. US is not even there in the counting in top five.

609 people in India having legal property more than Rs- 100 crores (Rs- 10 Million). Indian President one day living cost is Rs-8 crore, living in a place where 350 flats.Oneday Indian Parliament running cost is around 9 crore Rupees.Britishers looted 350 Lakh Crore in 250 years whereas Indian himself looted 330 crore. 70 Lakh crore only deposited in swiss bank. 84000 corrupt people in India.India has around 450 Billion dollar of coal deposit & 170 billion of iron ore deposit,looted by state politicians .According to Indian Government around 1 Lakh place in India where people doing illegal mining.

Dishonest persons, scandalous politicians and corrupt IAS, IPS officers have deposited in foreign banks in their illegal personal accounts a sum of about $ 1500 billion, which have been misappropriated by them. From 2003 to 2010 out of 5,635 IPS officers fifty(50) IPS officers were resigned and joined private company.

This amount is about 13 times larger than the country’s foreign debt. With this amount 45 crore poor people can get Rs 1,00,000 each. This huge amount has been appropriated from the people of India by exploiting and betraying them.

Some 80,000 people travel to Switzerland every year, of whom 25,000 travel very frequently.“Obviously, these people won’t be tourists.

Why our Indian Government is not asking to swiss Bank? Well the answer is simple , our Government is working under the influence of those politicians & industrialists who have huge deposit in Swiss bank.They cann`t expose their own people.

USA have settled their Swiss bank Account & their top Billionares in their countries paid to their country 50% of their Money which includes Gates & Bloomberg.Italy got 6.4 Billion dollar from swiss Bank,Germany got 5.7 Billion dollar from swiss Bank & France got 1.7 Billion dollar from swiss Bank.

Schweitzer Illustrierte, a Swiss news magazine,published on 19th November 1991, has alleged in an old issue that the Soviet intelligence agency KGB had deposited US $2.2 billion in a Swiss bank account in 1985 in the “minor” account of Rahul Gandhi managed by his mother Sonia Gandhi . Janata Party President Dr Subramanian Swamy, who had secured an order from the Delhi High Court to the CBI to investigate alleged receipt of slush money by late former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s family, has cited a November 1991 issue of the Swiss magazine in support of his charge.He has further claimed that the payments were authorized by CPSU by a resolution CPSU/CC/No 11228/3 dated 20/12/1985 and the same was also endorsed by the USSR Council of Ministers in Directive No 2633/Rs dated 20/12/1985. He also claimed that these payments had been coming since 1971 as the payments received by Sonia Gandhi’s family “have been audited in CPSU/CC resolution No 11187/22 OP dated 10/12/1984. Reference:–http://swissprivacy.tripod.com/id8.html

Why Government is not taking action on corrupt peoples ? Why CBI is not independently working? well answer is simple ,Government is taking lots of money in the name of party fund and also taking help from those politicians who are involved in
criminal charges.Whole police in India is working under politicians. According to RBI(Reserve Bank Of India) Rupees 17,18,826 crore notes print in India between year 2000-2010. Rupees 10 Lakh Crore money incirculation in India. Generally 2-3 % of GDP money circulation in other countries. But Indian Government has allowed four Swiss bank & Eight Bank of Italy in India.

Sources says that NGO is also engaged in converting black money into white Money.

swiss bank(ubs) revealed 6000 USA people names . In may 2008 Germany bank revealed 28 people names but government is still hiding their names. Even the Supreme court of India asked for names three times. But Government only make deal with 23 countries of Double Taxation.
USA got his money, France , Italy , countries like Singapore fought and get their money.India has more than 3.5 crore taxpayers. Black Money can be used by terrorists. Probably they are trying to move money to other countries or will invest in real-estate like in dubai or arab countries.After huge pressure from media & civil society Government has joined FATA (Financial Action Task Force) group only to delay issue.

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/126998/LATEST%20HEADLINES/indian-link-to-swiss-money-trail-revealed.html
In the data shared by Ex-Swiss banker Rudolf Elmer, there are at least three companies that go by the name of Annapurna. These accounts have been opened in the New York branch of the Swiss Bank Julius Baer.These accounts are Annapurna Convertible Ltd, account number 420331. Annapurna Leverage Ltd, account number 427039 .Annapurna Convertible USD, account number 431916.Money running into crores of rupees has been stashed away in these accounts.57million dollars or Rs 259 crore have been stashed away in Annapurna Convertible ltd. 18.6 million dollars or Rs 84 crore are lying in Annapurna Leverage Limited.And 10.3 million dollars or Rs 45 crore are hidden away in the account of Annapurna Convertible.Interestingly, the documents list the same company and same person as managing all the Annapurna accounts.Annapurna Convertible, Annapurna Leverage and Annapurna Convertible USD are all managed by Pius Fisch ofFisch Asset Management.The other name to come out was that of Asad Ali Khan and his wife Zahida, who was a co-account holder. Headlines Today scoured through the records sent to us by Rudolf Elmer and found out how Asad Ali Khan had siphoned off a huge amount of money to the Julius Baer Bank in Cayman Islands.A company in the name of Unicorp Services was incorporated in Cayman Islands.Its registered address is Post Box 1100, Kirk House, Grand Cayman Island, BWI.According to Elmer’s documents, the registration number of the company is 00233755.In the year 1999, Asad Ali Khan and Zahida were present for the dissolution of this company as directors of Unicorp Services in Cayman Islands.Elmer’s data also shows that the account was being managed by J.M.I. Gillani.The official address is: Banque Julius Baer, 2 Boulevard du Theatre, Case Postale, CH 1211, Geneva 11, Switzerland.

Where Black money is being used? Election, Air travel , Tour, Restaurants, Land, Jewelery.

Who is involved in Black Money? Senior bureaucrats (IAS,IPS officers), Ministers of Export-Import,Comerce, Chief Ministers, Top Industrialists , Horse Trader, Liquor Trader.

4000 kg gold sold in year 2010 in India.
144 nations signed UNCAC (United Nation Convention Against Corruption) but India is not signing because Indian Government is engaged in corruption. UNCAC Opened for signature from 9 December 2003 by the UN General Assembly & last date was 14 December 2005.

Highly placed sources in New Delhi and Mumbai say much of the money held in Swiss banks, and other tax havens like the Bahamas, have been routed into the Indian stock exchanges throughParticipatory Note (PN) bought in Mauritius through front companies. Since these instruments are not registered to trade in Indian domestic capital markets, the investors’ names remain undisclosed. “The route to take out the money is hawala and to bring it back is Participatory Note ,” says Hemen Kapadia, one of Mumbai’s top stock market analysts. Roughly 50-60 percent of FII investments, aggregating $85 billion till late 2009, were made through the Participatory Note route. And according to Kapadia, this route saw 75 percent traffic in the last few months. A worried market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is now learnt to have asked several FIIs to furnish details of the Participatory Note issued to their clients, but it has been consistently stonewalled. “They will always win by citing client confidentiality agreements, and I doubt whether SEBI has the necessary legal teeth to probe further,” Kapadia points out.

India`s economic debt—http://www.indiabudget.nic.in/es2009-10/chapt2010/tab84.pdf

FII investment in Indian stocks this year touched a record $18.13 billion ( Rs.82,360 crore), according to the SEBI website. In dollar terms the previous high was in 2007 ($17.65 billion) and in rupee terms in 2009. Stock market analysts say FII investment in rupee terms is lower because of appreciation in the Indian currency against the dollar. The Sensex last year gained over 80 percent — a figure it is likely to surpass this year.

Not taking into account the recently concluded Coal India IPO, the FII bids amounted to Rs. 1.20 lakh crore. Some foreign entities that have placed large bids for Coal India through PNs include Citibank ($1 billion), Merrill Lynch ($2 billion) and Deutsche Bank ($3 billion). The Qualified Institutional Buyer (QIB) quota in the Coal India IPO that was oversubscribed 24 times was primarily due to intense FII interest.

In fact, in 2007, when the then National Security Adviser MK Narayanan had spoken of terror funds routinely penetrating and manipulating the markets, he was hinting at PNs. Earlier, the RBI too had come out with a report expressing concern over the illegal traffic. At that time 89 percent of the funds invested by FIIs had come through the PN route, RBI data showed.According to recent estimates, roughly $200 billion — four times the external debt of Pakistan — is stashed away in Swiss banks and is now being withdrawn.

“A major area of vulnerability for us is the high consolidated public-debt to GDP ratio of over 70 percent … (and) consolidated fiscal deficit,” says the Governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Mr. Yaga Venugopal Reddy.

According to CIA world fact book, the Current account balance of India is MINUS -37,510,000,000 (minus) while China is the wealthiest country in the world with $ 426,100,000,000 (Plus) . India listed as 182 and China as no.1 . Money inflow in India is currently Rs 7,000 crore.

Total number of registered corruption cases was 64,00,000 in 1989 , now in year 2010 is 1,64,00,000 .
Hasan Ali 6 Billion Dollar swiss Bank account—-
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Hasan-Alis-6bn-in-Swiss-accounts-missing/articleshow/7365076.cms

Surely it`s time to Ban 1000 rupee note—-
http://www.governancenow.com/news/regular-story/check-corruption-ban-rs-1000-note

Sources say that NGO is the main source of Black Money in India.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/833-NGOs-blacklisted-for-misappropriation-of-funds/H1-Article1-488589.aspx

The GFI report says, “From 1948 through 2008, India lost a total of $213 billion in illicit financial flows (or illegal capital flight). These illicit financial flows were generally the product of corruption, bribery and kickbacks, and criminal activities.” The total of $213 billion is a misleading figure because “the present value of India’s illicit financial flows is at least $462 billion,” the GFIreport explains, adding, “This is based on the short-term US Treasury bill rate as a proxy for the rate of return on assets.” The GFI (Global Financial Integrity) report points out that the “total capital flight represents approximately 16.6 percent of India’s GDP as of year-end 2008”; that “illicit financial flows out of India grew at 11.5 per cent per year”; and, that “India lost $16 billion per year between 2002-2006”.The present value of illicit assets held abroad ($462 billion) “accounts for approximately 72 per cent of India’s underground economy — which has been estimated to account for 50 per cent of India’s GDP ($640 billion at the end of 2008)”. Just above a quarter of illicit assets are helddomestically.The fact that deposits in tax havens have increased from 36.4 per cent of illicit financial flows in 1995 to 54.2 per cent in 2009 tells its own story.

Well if Swiss Bank cann`t give information to India then why Indian Government is not stopping money that they are coming from outside India. But how can a corrupt system do?

We need to start a movement to pressurize the government to do so !! this is perhaps the only way, and a golden opportunity, to expose the high and mighty and weed out corruption !!

Is India poor, who says? Ask Swiss banks With personal account deposit bank of $1500 billion in foreign reserve which have been misappropriated, an amount 13 times larger than the country’s foreign debt, one needs to rethink if India is a poor country?.

$181 billion Indian black money in tax havens?

Between six and seven trillion dollars worth of black wealth lies hidden in tax havens across the world, according to a fresh estimate by a trio of senior economists from the Bank of Italy. Indians’ share in this is estimated at $152-181 billion, by one calculation. This is only wealth invested in shares and debt securities or held in bank deposits. It is impossible to get a handle on other wealth invested in physical assets like real estate, gold or art.

Released this week, these estimates follow the train of several such estimates in recent years with Gabriel Zucman, of London School of Economics, estimating it at $7.6 trillion, Boston Consulting Group at $8.9 trillion and Tax Justice Network at $21 trillion.

All of this wealth is held in tax havens, which are jurisdictions with weak regulations and strong secrecy laws, using shell companies to conceal original identities. The Italian economists analysed data from IMF and the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) to arrive at the figure.

When asked by TOI to estimate the Indian share in this gigantic treasure trove, the researchers were cautious.

There can be two ways of doing this, they told TOI via email. One is to assume that the Indian share in this global hidden wealth was simply the same as India’s share in global GDP, that is, about 2.5% in 2013, the year for which this data pertains. By this measure, the Indian share of hidden wealth is $152-181 billion. That’s about Rs 8.9 to 10.5 lakh crore.
Another way of finding out the Indian share of undeclared assets is to look at the Indian share in actual declared portfolio assets—about 0.07% of the total—and assume that the same is valid for hidden assets. By this way, India’s share in black assets works out to $4-5 billion or about Rs 25,000-30,000 crore.

These figures for India are just indicative and the three economists — Pellegrini, Sanelli and Tosti — were insistent that they “have to be considered with great care and in no way can represent firm data”. But, having said that, there is no other way of getting even a glimpse of the secret stockpile of wealth stashed away abroad by Indians. So, as a ballpark figure, it does give a hint of what lies buried.
Why is there a big discrepancy between the two methods of calculating India’s hidden wealth in tax havens? As the Italian researchers explained, Indians seem to have a much lower propensity for investing in foreign financial assets — that’s why their share in global offshore financial assets, as calculated from IMF data, is a puny 0.07%. But will this reluctance extend to secret investments too? Nobody knows.

In all probability, Indian share in foreign black money is somewhere between the two estimates computed above. This is supported by estimates of offshore wealth growth by various agencies. In the Global Wealth 2015 Report, the Boston Consulting Group says that shares of offshore wealth from Middle East and Africa region, Latin America and Asia Pacific were higher than Western Europe and North America, although it also points out that Asia-Pacific contribution is not so high.

Panama Papers: Global tax evaders list belittles PM Narendra Modi’s 90-day black money hunt

An investigation by an international media consortium, including the Indian Express, has unearthed several names of wealthy individuals across the world, who have hidden their money in holding companies set up in tax havens.

The Indians named in the list include actors Amitabh Bachhan, Aishwarya Rai Bachhan, DLF promoter KP Singh, Indiabulls owner Sameer Gehlaut, Gautam Adani’s elder brother Vinod Adani and politicians and former chief of the Delhi unit of Loksatta Party, Anurag Kejriwal. These individuals, and in some cases their family members, have formed offshore entities in tax havens by paying to a Panama-based law firm, Mossack Fonseca. This is the case in a nutshell.

Now, the obvious question is this. Is it illegal to invest in offshore companies if the earnings are legitimate? No. It is not. But, the problem arises if the money is earned in a jurisdiction, where they are liable to pay taxes, and the money is transferred across the border without doing so. In this case, this becomes ‘unaccounted wealth’ or what is informally known as ‘black money’.

In other words, if the individuals mentioned in the Panama list are able to prove that the money invested in these offshore entities is legitimate and already taxed, there are no issues. Else, they can be in serious trouble.

The Narendra Modi-government is under tremendous pressure to win back black money from abroad to fulfill its poll promises in the run up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. A 90-days black money window it announced last year yielded undisclosed foreign assets of only about Rs 3,770 crore from 638 declarations, a mere fraction of the total stock of blackmoney believed to be stashed abroad. In other words, the scheme was largely a flop show. Under the window, those with unaccounted foreign black money had to pay a tax of 30 percent and a penalty of another 30 percent to come clean.

It is important to note that the Panama list also shows the apparent failure of the the 90-days black money window offered last year to draw foreign blackmoney holders. The fate of the 90-day black money scheme was not too hard to anticipate since no one with ill-gotten wealth or unaccounted wealth would want to sacrifice 60 percent of their money to comply with the government regulations. They would find a way out by the time the arms of the law reach their bank lockers in tax havens.

When the window closed, finance minister, Arun Jaitley had warned in tough words that it will not leave any stone unturned to take action against the guilty. “Those who chose to declare between this period would not be prosecuted under the new black money law… These declarants can now sleep well.” Jaitley said, adding, “those with illegal assets abroad, who have failed to make declaration, would now stand the risk of information relating to them eventually reaching the Indian taxation authorities.”

It is not known whether any individuals whose names are included in the Panama list are among the declarants of the 90-days black money window that expired on 30 September, 2015. If they aren’t and if investigations find that they are indeed tax-evaders, its time for Jaitley to do what he said he would do. This isn’t the first time the list of black money holders surfaces in the media. In a similar investigation, a list of 1100 Indians with Swiss bank deposits was unearthed setting stage for larger debate on the black money issue.

The Modi-government has not made any significant progress on the black money hunt as it promised in the beginning, in terms of recovering money. But, it has indeed initiated efforts to do so. Not just foreign black money, the government is facing equal challenges to deal with the domestic black money holders as well.

This is also a time when Jaitley, in the Union Budget 2016, announced that a four month (June 1 to September 30, 2016) amnesty-like scheme will be given to domestic black money holders in India to disclose their illegal, unaccounted wealth by paying a total of 45 percent tax. Jaitley hasn’t called it an amnesty, but in principle, it is nothing but an amnesty offered to the tax-evaders. In 1997 when P Chidambaram was Finance Minister, a similar exercise had garnered Rs 10,000 crore revenue to the exchequer.

Besides that, after the Narendra Modi-government came to power, it announced a 90-days amnesty-like window for foreign blackmoney holders charging them 60 percent tax. A total of Rs 4,147 crore of undeclared wealth was declared and the government garnered Rs 2,500 crore from the whole exercise, again a paltry sum considering the kind of blackmoney stashed abroad.

In India, political promise of action against black money is not a convincing one since many of the political parties themselves thrive on funding from the same black money holders. The lack of transparency and the give-and-take relationship between politicians and corporations/wealthy individuals makes it even more difficult to cleanse the system and undertake action against the offenders.

The important question that the Panama list brings to the table is this: Can the Modi-government initiate meaningful action against the offenders by investigating their foreign holdings and, thus, show its seriousness on the black money hunt?

Indian black money deposits moved out of Switzerland

The Swiss National Bank, the country’s central banking authority, has estimated the funds currently held by Indians in Swiss banks at a mere $1.98 billion.

Fear of disclosure due to greater scrutiny of this illicit wealth has played the main role in the flight of capital. Rashme Sehgal reports from Geneva for Rediff.com

Narendra Modi had promised that on becoming prime minister he would ensure that Indian black money stashed in Swiss bank vaults would make its way back to India and every Indian would receive a bonanza of Rs 15 lakh (Rs 1.5 million).

Fifteen months have passed into his prime ministership and there are no signs of any undeclared assets having reached Indian shores. Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah has tried to pass off Modi’s promise as being little more than an ‘election jhumla.’

Banking experts in Switzerland point out that the Rs 15 lakh figure for 1.2 billion Indians is untenable since most of the black money Indians had deposited in Swiss banks was cleared out during the last decade.

As per the latest data, the amount held by Indians through fiduciaries in Swiss banks has reached a record low level, while it used to be in the billions of dollars till about seven years ago.

“The figures of Rs 15 lakh would have worked out to several times India’s present GDP,” a senior Geneva-based tax consultant points out. “Switzerland never saw such massive deposits from any country.”

“More than half the undeclared money from India has been moved to Dubai and Singapore where it could have been invested in real estate, gold or re-entered India through the hawalaroute,” says lawyer Nathalie Bersier, a consultant for Swiss investments in India and vice versa.

“I do not know how Modi made such a remark. The Manmohan Singh government also talked about huge amounts of undeclared Indian money,” Bersier adds, “but the truth is that most of the money has moved out in the last decade.”.

The Swiss National Bank, the country’s central banking authority, according to data released last year, has estimated the funds currently held by Indians in Swiss banks at a mere $1.98 billion.

Fear of disclosure due to greater scrutiny of this illicit wealth has played the main role in the flight of capital.

Contesting the large black money amounts being mentioned in Indian newspapers, Bersier says, “In Switzerland, the perception is that the Indian assets vary between $900 million and $4 billion. I believe the amount would be somewhere in between.”

While Indian deposits may have shown a steady decline, the money held in Swiss banks by foreign depositors rose during 2014 to $1.6 trillion or Rs 103 lakh crore from about Rs 90 lakh crore at the end of 2013.

“From 2009, the Indian government has been highlighting this issue of black money without realising that the easiest thing to do is to close a bank account and transfer the money out,” says Bersier.

“Such a flight of capital has already occurred. Many of these deposits are known to have belonged to politicians which is why no government is forthcoming with the names of the depositors,” she adds.

Her belief is buttressed by the release of data from the Zurich-based Swiss National Bank confirming this trend. As per its latest data, the total Indian deposits held in Swiss banks at the end of 2014 included 1,776 million Swiss francs or Rs 12,350 crore (Rs 123.50 billion) held directly by Indian individuals and entities (down from 1,952 million Swiss francs a year ago), and another 38 million Swiss franc (down from 77.3 million Swiss francs at the end of 2013) through ‘fiduciaries’ or wealth managers.

State secretary for International Financial Matters Jacques de Watteville refused to hazard a guess about just how much money has been moved out of Swiss banks to be invested in Dubai or Singapore. “There are no official on the assets transferred out of Switzerland,” says Watteville.

Asked about the Indian names published in the Swiss Federal Gazette, Watteville says, “The publication of names of Indian account holders in the Swiss Federal Gazette is an internal Swiss legal procedure. Names are only published in the Federal Gazette as a last resort when there is no contact address in Switzerland for foreign residents who are affected by an administrative assistance request. The mere fact to have a name published does not prejudge the legal position of the person concerned.”

Does India need to establish a scheme to regularise offshore assets? “Our understanding is that the Indian government recently opened a ‘compliance window’ for taxpayers to regularise their situation,” says Watteville, referring to the government scheme whereby tax evaders can pay a penalty of 20 percent and get their black money regularised.

“Banking circles are aware that undeclared assets by Indians has been moved out,” says Nicolas Stepczynski, a Geneva-based banker and tax consultant with Berger Van Berchem et Cie. “Rich Indian families are already under great scrutiny by their government and therefore known to be very careful with their finances.”

Will the famed secrecy wall of Switzerland’s banking system finally show cracks? The Swiss Federal Council, Switzerland’s highest executive authority, recently declared that it is holding consultations with the Tax Administrative Assistance Act to ease practises with regard to stolen data.

For the present, Switzerland has refused to acknowledge leaked data as was the case of 600 Indian depositors at HSBC whose names were leaked by whistleblower Herve Falciani in 2006.

Falciani gave the list to the French government — who provided the information to the Indian government — rather than to the Swiss government because he felt it would not have investigated the matter further.

Bersier does not see too much emerging from the Federal Council consultations. “They are at a very early stage. Discussions have been held between the Swiss and Indian governments on the need to detect, recover and repatriate illegal deposits, but all the information available with the Indian government is based on stolen documents.”

“The key issue is what pressure the Indian government can exert on the Swiss government,” says Bersier. “The US threatened to close all Swiss banks operating in the US which led to the Swiss immediately signing a treaty with the US and UK. There are no Swiss banks operating in India.”

On the subject of the Automatic Exchange of Information between the Swiss and Indian governments expected to be operationalised by 2018, Bersier is equally cynical.

Erecting the AEOI platform is all very well, she feels, but it is too little too late. “By the time it becomes operational,” Bersier says, “all the illegal deposits will have been moved out. There are any number of countries where this money can be moved to.”

India has set up a Special Investigation Team headed by Justice B M Shah to look into the issue of black money. Justice Shah has welcomed the Swiss Federal Council’s approval of the bill to amend its laws to allow its government to share information with countries on the basis on what is perceived to be stolen data.

Detection and recovery of black money in foreign tax havens is a key concern of the Modi government.

India cites UN convention to help unearth black money

As Indian agencies look to bring back black money and ‘proceeds of crime’ stashed by individuals and companies in tax havens, the Narendra Modi government has drawn the attention of world leaders, including British Prime Minister David Cameron, to the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) which says that countries should extend cooperation in giving information on stolen or unaccounted assets.

India also pointed to the leaders and their representatives that nations should not hide behind bank secrecy laws when it comes to sharing information on “unaccounted money” lying in their banks and other financial institutions.

Representing India at the global Anti-Corruption Summit in London on May 11-12, central vigilance commissioner KV Chowdary , said, “Mr Prime Minister (David Cameron), India would like to stress that as stated in Article 51, the return of assets is a fundamental principle of UNCAC, and states/ parties must afford one another widest measures of international cooperation in facilitating quick return of stolen assets, including unaccounted assets and particularly assets in safe havens, to the countries of origin.”

Chowdary was accompanied by Enforcement Directorate chief Karnal Singh for the summit.

He said India will support the reporting on “tax information for large multinational enterprises” and that “India will take steps required for preventing corruption in government, its institutions and in businesses”. “We are also committed on the issue of return of unaccounted wealth from safe havens and for persistent and consistent efforts on asset recovery,” he said.

India’s statement in the summit said, “As advised by G20 and endorsed by the Doha declaration adopted at the 13th UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, India advocates the extending of all assistance to the requesting States in identification, tracing, freezing, seizure, recovery and repatriation of assets.” “We firmly advocate that all State Parties should ensure cooperation in dissemination of information without any impediment of bank secrecy laws, to the requesting country,” said the statement.

Global Tax Havens or Havens For Dirty Money

By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Gabriel Zucman, the author of the 2015 book “The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens,” estimates that $7.6 trillion is stashed in tax havens. This amounts to 8 percent of the world’s personal financial wealth. The author believes that if all of this illegally hidden money were properly recorded and taxed, global tax revenues would grow by more than $200 billion a year.

Interestingly, on April 3, 2016, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, leaked massive documents known as “Panama Papers” which reveal the shadowy world of hidden offshore finances of presidents and prime ministers. The biggest leak of financial data in history exposes the offshore holdings of 12 current and former world leaders and provides details of the hidden financial dealings of 128 more politicians and public officials around the world.

The German newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), which worked on the leaked documents with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, said the data provides rare insights into a world that can only exist in the shadows. It proves how a global industry led by major banks, legal firms, and asset management companies secretly manages the estates of the world’s rich and famous: from politicians, FIFA officials, fraudsters and drug smugglers, to celebrities and professional athletes.

According to The Guardian, the Panama Papers are an unprecedented leak of 11.5m files from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The documents show the myriad ways in which the rich can exploit secretive offshore tax regimes. The massive leak of confidential documents from a Panamanian law firm has shown how some of the world’s richest people hide assets to avoid paying taxes.

Among national leaders with offshore wealth are Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister; Ayad Allawi, ex-interim prime minister and former vice-president of Iraq; Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine; Alaa Mubarak, son of Egypt’s former president; and the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has formed a high-level judicial commission to probe any financial wrongdoing, a day after three of his children were named in the ‘Panama Papers’ for owning offshore companies prompting demands for an enquiry by the opposition. Documents on the ICIJ website said Sharif’s children – Mariam, Hasan and Hussain – “were owners or had the right to authorize transactions for several companies”. Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s relatives Samina Durrani and Ilyas Mehraj have also figured in the documents examined.

Iceland’s prime minister, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, became the first major casualty of the Panama Papers, stepping aside from his office amid mounting public outrage that his family had sheltered money offshore.

A $2bn trail leads all the way to Vladimir Putin’s best friend Sergei Roldugin who is at the centre of a scheme in which money from Russian state banks is hidden offshore. A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin told The Guardian that the media investigation into offshore accounts is motivated by “Putinphobia,” and that he has not been implicated in any wrongdoing.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “it’s obvious that the main target of such attacks is our president,” and claimed that the publication was aimed at influencing Russia’s stability and parliamentary elections scheduled for September. He suggested the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which co-ordinated the international investigation, has ties to the U.S. government.

Family members of at least eight current or former members of China’s Politburo Standing Committee, the country’s main ruling body, have offshore companies arranged though Mossack Fonseca. They include President Xi’s brother-in-law, who set up two British Virgin Islands companies in 2009. China’s foreign ministry dismissed reports of the leaks from the Mossack Fonseca database as ‘groundless accusations’. A Communist party censorship directive instructed news organizations to purge all reports, blogs, bulletin boards and comments relating to Panama Papers revelations.

Twenty-three individuals who have had sanctions imposed on them for supporting the regimes in North Korea, Zimbabwe, Russia, Iran and Syria have been clients of Mossack Fonseca. Their companies were harbored by the Seychelles, the British Virgin Islands, Panama and other jurisdictions.

Tax Havens

Jill Lawless of the Associated Press says there’s one part of the British Empire on which the sun still does not set: its tax havens. Britain’s former world dominance has left it with a string of tiny territories scattered around the globe, and many of them have become hubs for hiding money. Despite growing political pressure, shutting down these and other tax havens may be easier said than done, Jill said.

As Britain’s colonies gained independence after World War II, London encouraged several small Caribbean islands to become tax havens as a means to self-sufficiency. As a result, many of the world’s tax havens have British links, including overseas territories such as the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. The Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey off the French coast, which are possessions of the British Crown, have been havens for the wealthy and their money for almost a century.

More than half the 200,000 companies set up for clients by Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca in the leaked files are registered in the British Virgin Islands, a British overseas territory in the Caribbean.

According to the BBC two broad qualifications for being a tax haven are to have a low or zero rate of income tax and guarantee the rich a cloak of secrecy they would not receive in their own country. They have also been used to cover up criminal activity.

Since 2009, many attempts have been made to crack down on abuses. More than 700 tax transparency deals have been signed globally. Places including Switzerland, the Channel Islands and Luxembourg have tightened the rules, but Panama and the British Virgin Islands are among those criticized for not doing enough. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Group of 20 nations have persuaded more than 90 countries to share financial data in a bid to crack down on secret dealings.

Mossack Fonseca

The Panama Papers make it clear that major banks are big drivers behind the creation of hard-to-trace companies in the British Virgin Islands, Panama and other offshore havens. They list nearly 15,600 paper companies that banks set up for clients who want keep their finances under wraps, including thousands created by international giants UBS and HSBC.

Mossack Fonseca is one of the world’s top creators of shell companies, corporate structures that can be used to hide ownership of assets. The law firm’s leaked internal files contain information on 214,488 offshore entities connected to people in more than 200 countries and territories.

The offshore system relies on a sprawling global industry of bankers, lawyers, accountants and these go-betweens who work together to protect their clients’ secrets. These secrecy experts use anonymous companies, trusts and other paper entities to create complex structures that can be used to disguise the origins of dirty money.

The Mossack Fonseca law firm has worked closely with big banks and big law firms in places like The Netherlands, Mexico, the United States and Switzerland, helping clients move money or slash their tax bills, the secret records show.

Big U.S. firms hold $2.1 trillion overseas to avoid taxes

Not surprisingly, in October 2015, an economic study revealed that the 500 largest American companies hold more than $2.1 trillion in accumulated profits offshore to avoid U.S. taxes and would collectively owe an estimated $620 billion in U.S. taxes if they repatriated the funds.

The study, by Citizens for Tax Justice and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, found that nearly three-quarters of the firms on the Fortune 500 list of biggest American companies by gross revenue operate tax haven subsidiaries in countries like Bermuda, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

Apple was holding $181.1 billion offshore, more than any other U.S. company, and would owe an estimated $59.2 billion in U.S. taxes if it tried to bring the money back to the United States from its three overseas tax havens, the study said.

General Electric has booked $119 billion offshore in 18 tax havens, software firm Microsoft is holding $108.3 billion in five tax haven subsidiaries and drug company Pfizer is holding $74 billion in 151 subsidiaries, the study said.

“At least 358 companies, nearly 72 percent of the Fortune 500, operate subsidiaries in tax haven jurisdictions as of the end of 2014,” the study said. “All told these 358 companies maintain at least 7,622 tax haven subsidiaries.”

Fortune 500 companies hold more than $2.1 trillion in accumulated profits offshore to avoid taxes, with just 30 of the firms accounting for $1.4 trillion of that amount, or 65 percent, the study found.

In September 2015, a U.S. federal judge authorized the Internal Revenue Service to seek the names of Americans using accounts at two Belize banks.

US Corporate Tax Cheats Hiding $1.4 Trillion In Profits In Offshore Accounts

By Patrick Martin

A report issued Thursday by the British charity Oxfam found that the 50 largest US corporations are hiding $1.4 trillion in profits in overseas accounts to avoid US income taxes, much of it in tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

The biggest tax dodger is technology giant Apple, with $181 billion held offshore. General Electric had the second-largest stash, at $119 billion, enough to repay four times over the $28 billion GE received in federal guarantees during the 2008 Wall Street crash. Microsoft had $108 billion in overseas accounts, with companies like Exxon Mobil, Pfizer, IBM, Cisco Systems, Google, Merck, and Johnson & Johnson rounding out the top ten.

Overseas tax havens have been the focus of recent revelations about tax scams by wealthy individuals, based on the leak of the “Panama Papers,” documents from a single Panama-based law firm, Mossack Fonseca, involving 214,000 offshore shell companies. The firm’s clients included 29 billionaires and 140 top politicians worldwide, among them a dozen heads of government.

But the sums involved in corporate tax scams dwarf those hidden away by individuals. According to the Oxfam report, the offshore manipulations by the 50 largest US corporations cost the US taxpayer $111 billion each year, while robbing another $100 billion annually from countries overseas, many of them desperately poor.

The $111 billion a year in US taxes evaded would be sufficient to eliminate 90 percent of child poverty in America, effectively wiping out that social scourge. It is more than the annual cost of the food stamp program, or unemployment benefits, or the total budget of the Department of Education.

Oxfam timed the release of its report for the April 15 income tax deadline in the United States (actually Monday, April 18 this year), when tens of millions of working people must file their income tax returns or face federal penalties. Working people could face additional tax penalties of up to 2 percent of household income, to a maximum of $975, under the Obamacare “individual mandate,” if they have not purchased private health insurance.

There is a stark contrast between the IRS hounding of working people for relatively small amounts of money—but difficult or impossible to pay for those on low incomes—and the green light given to corporate tax cheats who evade taxation on trillions in income.

“As Americans rush to finalize tax returns, multinational corporations that benefit from trillions in taxpayer-funded support are dodging billions in taxes,” said Raymond C. Offenheiser, President of Oxfam America. “The vast sums large companies stash in tax havens should be fighting poverty and rebuilding America’s infrastructure, not hidden offshore in Panama, Bahamas, or the Cayman Islands.”

The Oxfam report, titled “Broken at the Top,” expresses concern that “tax dodging by multinational corporations…contributes to dangerous inequality that is undermining our social fabric and hindering economic growth.”

It continues: “This inequality is fueled by an economic and political system that benefits the rich and powerful at the expense of the rest, causing the gains of economic growth over the last several decades to go disproportionately to the already wealthy. Among the most damning examples of this rigged system is the way large, profitable companies use offshore tax havens, and other aggressive and secretive methods, to dramatically lower their corporate tax rates in the United States and developing countries alike.”

Oxfam collected figures available from the 10-K reports and other financial documents issued by the 50 largest US companies, covering the period since the Wall Street crash, 2008 through 2014, and presented them in an interactive table. The figures included total profits, federal taxes paid, total US taxes paid (including state and local), lobbying expenses, tax breaks, money held in offshore accounts, and benefits received from the federal government, including loans, loan guarantees and bailouts.

Among the most important findings:

* The top 50 companies made nearly $4 trillion in profits globally, but paid only $412 billion in federal income tax, for an effective tax rate of barely 10 percent, compared to the statutory rate of 35 percent.

* The 50 companies spent $2.6 billion to influence the federal government, while reaping nearly $11.2 trillion in federal support, for an effective return of 400,000 percent on their lobbying expenses.

* The overseas cash stashed by the 50 companies, nearly $1.4 trillion, is larger than the Gross Domestic Product of Russia, Mexico, Spain or South Korea.

* US multinationals reported 43 percent of their foreign earnings from five tax havens, countries that accounted for only 4 percent of their foreign workforce and 7 percent of foreign investment. All told, US companies shifted between $500 billion and $700 billion in profits from countries where economic activity actually took place to countries where tax rates were low.

* In the year 2012 alone, US firms reported $80 billion in profits in Bermuda, more than their combined reported profits in the four largest economies (after the US itself): China, Japan, Germany and France. This figure was nearly 20 times the total GDP of the tiny island country.

The Oxfam report also pointed to an estimated $100 billion in taxes evaded in foreign countries, many of them rich in natural resources extracted by such global giants as Exxon, Chevron and Dow Chemical. According to the report, “Taxes paid, or unpaid, by multinational companies in poor countries can be the difference between life and death, poverty or opportunity. $100 billion is four times what the 47 least developed countries in the world spend on education for their 932 million citizens. $100 billion is equivalent to what it would cost to provide basic life-saving health services or safe water and sanitation to more than 2.2 billion people.”

The report cited former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s assessment that “Africa loses more money each year to tax dodging than it receives in international development assistance.”

Oxfam offered no solution to the growth of inequality and the systematic looting by big corporations that its report documents, except to urge governments around the world to close tax loopholes. The group also pleads with the corporate bosses themselves not to be quite so greedy. Neither capitalist governments nor the CEOs will pay the slightest attention. But the working class should take note of these figures, which provide ample evidence of the bankrupt and reactionary nature of capitalism, and the urgent necessity of building a mass movement, on a global scale, to put an end to the profit system.

Global Tax Havens or Havens For Dirty Money

By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Tax Havens

Mossack Fonseca

Big U.S. firms hold $2.1 trillion overseas to avoid taxes

In September 2015, a U.S. federal judge authorized the Internal Revenue Service to seek the names of Americans using accounts at two Belize banks.

PIL – Legal Prosecution of Government officials , Public Servants involved in Reliance Scams

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA ORIGINAL JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL WRIT PETITION NO. OF 2015

IN THE MATTER OF

NAGARAJA . M.R ,

editor , SOS e Clarion of Dalit & SOS e Voice for Justice ,

# LIG 2 , No 761 , HUDCO First Stage , Laxmikantanagar ,

Hebbal , Mysore – 570017 , Karnataka State

…..Petitioner

Versus

Honourable Cabinet Secretary , PMO , Government of India & Others

….Respondents

PETITION UNDER ARTICLE 12 to ARTICLE 35 & ARTICLE 51A OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA FOR ISSUANCE OF A WRIT IN THE NATURE OF

MANDAMUS UNDER ARTICLE 32 & ARTICLE 226 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA.

To ,

Hon’ble The Chief Justice of India and His Lordship’s Companion

Justices of the Supreme Court of India. The Humble petition of the Petitioner above named.

MOST RESPECTFULLY SHOWETH :

1. Facts of the case:

Our whole hearted respects to honest few in judiciary , parliament & public service. Our salutes to them , due to honest efforts of those few noble persons only at least democracy is surviving in India.

A . “Power will go to the hands of rascals, , rogues and freebooters. All Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight among themselves for power and will be lost in political squabbles . A day would come when even air & water will be taxed.” Sir Winston made this statement in the House of Commons just before the independence of India & Pakistan. Sadly , the forewarning of Late Winston Churchill has been proved right by some of our criminal , corrupt people’s representatives , police , public servants & Judges. Some of the below mentioned judges fall among the category of churchill’s men – Rogues , Rascals & Freebooters.

B . Loot of natural resources , telecom spectrum & public property in India and illegal aid to those criminals by government officials.

2. Question(s) of Law:

Are government officials , telecom , petroleum , finance department officials , police & revenue officials who aided loot , above Law & can go scot free ?

3. Grounds:

Requests for equitable justice , legal prosecution & punishment of guilty government officials and public servants .

4. Averment:

Give what action has been taken by government of india or state governments or other statutory bodies against reliance industries for it’s irregularities in telecom , oil sector , etc.

That the present petitioner has not filed any other petition (which are admitted by courts) in any High Court or the Supreme Court of India on the subject matter of the present petition.

PRAYER:

In the above premises, it is prayed that this Hon’ble Court may be pleased:

(i) Hereby , I do request the honorable supreme court of India to consider this as a PIL for : “writ of Mandamus” and to issue instructions to the concerned public servants in the following cases to perform their duties & to answer the questions.

(ii) Hereby , I do request the honourble supreme court of india to legally prosecute guilty officials mentioned in the above said report.

(iii) Hereby , I do request the honourble supreme court of india to uphold the constitution of india , to protect natural resources and to protect the constitutional rights of all Indian citizens including mine.
(iv) Hereby , I do request the honourble supreme court of india to immediately keep all government officials mentioned in the above said report under suspension from service & to take necessary steps to protect all type of evidences.

(v) to pass such other orders and further orders as may be deemed necessary on the facts and in the circumstances of the case.

FOR WHICH ACT OF KINDNESS, THE PETITIONER SHALL BE DUTY BOUND, EVER PRAY.

Date : 28th November 2015………………………………Filed By : Nagaraja.M.R.

Place : Mysuru India…………………………………………..Petitioner in person

PIL – Legal Prosecution of officials involved in Bellary Mining Scam

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA ORIGINAL JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL WRIT PETITION NO. OF 2015

IN THE MATTER OF

NAGARAJA . M.R ,

editor , SOS e Clarion of Dalit & SOS e Voice for Justice ,

# LIG 2 , No 761 , HUDCO First Stage , Laxmikantanagar ,

Hebbal , Mysore – 570017 , Karnataka State

…..Petitioner

Versus

Honourable Chief Secretary , Government of Karnataka & Others

….Respondents

PETITION UNDER ARTICLE 12 to ARTICLE 35 & ARTICLE 51A OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA FOR ISSUANCE OF A WRIT IN THE NATURE OF

MANDAMUS UNDER ARTICLE 32 & ARTICLE 226 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA.

To ,

Hon’ble The Chief Justice of India and His Lordship’s Companion

Justices of the Supreme Court of India. The Humble petition of the Petitioner above named.

MOST RESPECTFULLY SHOWETH :

1. Facts of the case:

B . Loot of natural resources in Karnataka state and illegal aid to those criminals by government officials. Read Karnataka Lokayukta Mining scam report .

2. Question(s) of Law:

Are forest officials , police & revenue officials who aided bellary mining loot , above Law & can go scot free ?

3. Grounds:

Requests for equitable justice , legal prosecution & punishment of guilty police , revenue , forest officials.

4. Averment:

GIVE WHAT ACTION HAS BEEN TAKEN AGAINST THE GUILTY GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS MENTIONED IN THE KARNATAKA LOKAYUKTA REPORT submitted by Justice Santosh Hegde & Shri.U.V.Singh ABOUT BELLARY MINING SCAM. IF NOT WHY ? REASONS THEROF.

How many guilty government officials mentioned in the above report got promotions , continuing in service making it easy for them to tamper evidences ?

What action against public servants , officials who are hushing up the case & protecting the guilty ?

The Petitioner has sent many letters / appeals / petitions to supreme court of india & other courts through e-mail , DARPG website & through regular mail requesting them to consider those as PILs. But none of them were admitted , even acknowledgement for receipts were not given. See How duty conscious ,our judges are & see how our judges are sensitive towards life , liberty of citizens , commonmen & see how careless our judges are towards anti national crimes , crimes worth crores of rupees.

That the present petitioner has not filed any other petition (which are admitted by courts) in any High Court or the Supreme Court of India on the subject matter of the present petition.

PRAYER:

In the above premises, it is prayed that this Hon’ble Court may be pleased:

(ii) Hereby , I do request the honourble supreme court of india to legally prosecute guilty officials mentioned in the above said report.

(v) to pass such other orders and further orders as may be deemed necessary on the facts and in the circumstances of the case.

FOR WHICH ACT OF KINDNESS, THE PETITIONER SHALL BE DUTY BOUND, EVER PRAY.

Date : 04th November 2015………………………………Filed By : Nagaraja.M.R.

Place : Mysuru India……………………………………Petitioner in person

Editorial : Scams , Illegalities in Trusts , CSR Funds

Trusts , Associations are ideally formed , funded by noble persons to work for achieving certain noble social objectives like education to deprived , health care to poor , etc. Ideally these trusts enjoy the faith , confidence of public and collect donations from them to achieve their stated objectives.

Of late , many NGOs , Trusts are formed by rich cunning people , corporate bodies solely to divert the black money. They lack accountability to the public , donors. Religious , charitable trusts which are formed to propagate religious preaching indulge in business of establishing hi fi medical , engineering colleges earning donations to the tune of millions of rupees every year. Most of the financial transactions of these trusts takes place by cash payments without proper documentation to by pass legal scrutiny.

Many office bearers / founders of these trusts treat their trusts as their personal fiefdoms and spend the resources of trust for their personal hi fi lifestyles. Administrative expenses of these trusts are much more than the expenses made towards the objectives of these trusts. There are also possibilities of siphoning off money to illegal activities.

The tax exemptions given to these trusts by government are in essence a donation made by public exchequer to the very same trust to the tune of tax amount if enforced. Government also gives land at concessional rates to these trusts , that subsidy amount is also a donation by public exchequer to the trust. So , naturally functioning of all religious , charitable , educational , political trusts must be brought under the ambit of RTI. A cap on administrative expenses of trusts must be enforced. Office bearers of trusts who violate the stated objectives of trusts must be charged for public cheating & money must be recovered from them. Such trusts should be superseded and brought under the control of government.

Jai Hind. Vande Mataram.

Your’s

Nagaraja.M.R.

PIL – Scams in Public Trusts

An Appeal to Honourable Supreme Court of India

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA ORIGINAL JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL WRIT PETITION NO. OF 2016

IN THE MATTER OF

NAGARAJA . M.R

editor , SOS e Clarion of Dalit & SOS e Voice for Justice
# LIG 2 , No 761 ,, HUDCO First Stage , Laxmikantanagar ,
Hebbal , Mysore – 570017 , Karnataka State
.
….Petitioner

Versus

Honourable Chief Secretary , Government of Karnataka & Others

….Respondents

PETITION UNDER ARTICLE 12 to ARTICLE 35 & ARTICLE 51A OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA FOR ISSUANCE OF A WRIT IN THE NATURE OF MANDAMUS UNDER ARTICLE 32 & ARTICLE 226 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA.

To ,
Hon’ble The Chief Justice of India and His Lordship’s Companion Justices of the Supreme Court of India.

The Humble petition of the Petitioner above named.

MOST RESPECTFULLY SHOWETH :
1. Facts of the case:

Why political trusts , religious trusts lack public accountability ? are they above law ?
3. Grounds:
Requests for equitable justice.

4. Averment:

That the present petitioner has not filed any other petition (which are admitted by courts) in any High Court or the Supreme Court of India on the subject matter of the present petition.

b . to pass such other orders and further orders as may be deemed necessary on the facts and in the circumstances of the case.

c. to order all type of trusts to conduct their financial transactions through banks only.

d. to order all type of trusts to make their functioning public and to disclose their activities under RTI.

e. to order trusts not to indulge in activities other than the stated objectives of trust and not to spend trust money for the puroses other than mentioned in the objectives.

f. to put a cap on the administarative expenses , office bearers expenses of trusts.

g. to initiate criminal charges against the office bearers of trusts who have misused , diverted trust resources and recover such money from them with penal interest.

h. to supersede all the trusts which violate law and to bring thm under the control of government.

FOR WHICH ACT OF KINDNESS, THE PETITIONER SHALL BE DUTY BOUND, EVER PRAY.

Dated : 13th July 2016 …………………….FILED BY: NAGARAJA.M.R.

Place : Mysuru , India……………………. PETITIONER-IN-PERSON

Donations Scam In Educational Trusts

– I-T Department Exposes scam worth crores

According to I-T officials, the operations were conducted mainly in Karnataka and Maharashtra (including Pune and Mumbai) that have clusters of universities and professional colleges.

Educational trusts that run professional colleges, primarily medical and engineering colleges, by collecting donations as high as Rs 1 crore have come under the Income-Tax (I-T) department’s scanner. The I-T department has raised Rs 100 crore in tax demand from some trusts in Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Bengaluru for irregularities and misusing tax benefits meant for charitable trusts. According to I-T sleuths, several institutions were surveyed in the last two months, and, in a few cases, searches were conducted as well. The findings of the survey have been sent to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on black money. “The total amount of the scam is not yet quantified,” said an official directly involved with the operation. A large chunk of unaccounted money, accepted as donations, is used for personal benefits, and, of course, do not get declared. This results in the generation of black money,” said the official.

According to I-T officials, the operations were conducted mainly in Karnataka and Maharashtra (including Pune and Mumbai) that have clusters of universities and professional colleges. The action follows the government’s move to curb black money generation within the country. The finance ministry is of the view that the bulk of black money is still within India. A senior I-T official said, “Investigations have revealed that several trust-run educational institutions accept donations for admissions and deposit them in multiple bank accounts. In some cases, demand draft/bank challans were purchased in favour of the trust president, and they used multiple challans to keep the amounts low.”

“Nobody can object to charity or donations, but, at the same time, when large sums get donated, it rings an alarm bell unless the payments are made by account payee cheques with the donor’s name and Permanent Account Number,” a former DGIT told dna. “Some of these institutions are owned by big corporates and industrialists. In certain instances, it was found that trusts were created to divert funds,” said another official.

Discreet investigations have revealed that there were 3-4 intermediaries, and, quite often, office-bearers of these colleges accepted donations in cash. Admissions to under-graduate and post-graduate programmes were the main focal points for such acceptance of cash donations and done with the knowledge of the president of the trusts.

“There are at 3-4 intermediaries in the entire process – right from office-bearers to trustee owners. The main concern is that, in all cases, co-operative banks are being used to channelise donations. Henceforth, involvement of banks will also be investigated,” said an investigating officer. It has also been observed that many institutions do not specify the sources of income in their income statement and balance sheets.

In many cases, permissions were not taken from the appropriate authority for leasing out property for educational programmes. No plot or land can be leased out for any other purpose than education and without special permission from the leasing authority.

“In a few instances, the trustees have shown demand drafts received as donation from parents but we found that these drafts were from the same bank branch, indicating that they were breaking up cash into smaller drafts and depositing part of the donations back to the accounts maintained by the trust,” said I-T officials.

According to I-T sleuths, trustees created ‘proxy students’ who would take admissions under the government quota, only to be auctioned by the college to the highest bidder. This practice is rampant in private medical institutions. The income of a charitable trust is exempt from I-T, according to the provisions of Section 11, 12 and 13 of the I-T Act. However, to avail of this exemption, the activities of such trust/society should fall within the definition of ‘charitable purpose’.

It is often a topic of dispute among tax authorities whether high-end educational institutions, providing modern and state-of-the-art educational aid, should be allowed to undertake activities that are charitable or commercial in nature

Government seeks to tighten regulations for charitable trusts

The proposal will have implications for the way trusts claim tax exemptions and receive anonymous donations

Budget proposals to tighten the regulation of charitable trusts and institutions will have major implications for the way trusts currently claim tax exemptions and receive anonymous donations, experts said.

Aiming to prevent the abuse of tax exemptions, finance minister Arun Jaitley’s budget last week introduced provisions that seek to end the practice of trusts claiming double tax benefits, or tax exemption even when the income is not being used for charitable purposes. The budget also sought to make it easier for the tax department to cancel the registration of such trusts. And in an attempt to check money laundering, the government changed the tax treatment to discourage anonymous donations received by charitable institutions and trusts.

In December, the income tax department was hauled up by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India over the alleged misuse of tax exemptions by trusts, pointing to lapses in the registration process, allowance of exemptions during assessment, non-monitoring of surplus income accumulations and foreign contributions received by trusts. The national auditor had also named a number of trusts who it said were misusing tax exemption provisions.

Rahul Garg, leader, direct taxes at consulting firm PwC, said the budget proposals are aimed at enhancing the compliance and reporting requirements by these trusts and plug some of the loopholes in the current laws.

“There was a perception that the charitable institutions are able to indulge in tax evasion due to the varied interpretation of the existing laws. The amendments clearly spell out what the law is. It will also help in reducing litigation,” he said.

He added that the changes will also address fears of money laundering raised by the home ministry because of the way foreign funds were coming into some charitable institutions. According to the memorandum explaining provisions under the Finance Bill 2014, a registered trust or institution which avails the benefit of exemptions under a specific exemption provision in Section 11 of the Income Tax Act meant for charitable purposes, cannot simultaneously take benefit of the exemption provided under any other provision of the Act.

Also, provisions have been introduced to ensure that a trust which uses tax-exempt income for acquisition of assets, cannot claim double benefit by using a notional depreciation of such assets.

To be sure, Parliament has to pass the Finance Bill 2014 for it to become an Act.

Law firm Khaitan and Co. in a post-budget note, said the changes in regulations around charitable trusts and institutions are aimed at rationalizing the taxation regime and eliminating certain loopholes and ambiguities. The note pointed out that the powers of the commissioner of income tax to cancel the tax exemption certificate of an institution have also been widened.

A commissioner can cancel the registration certificate if the trust does not use funds to benefit the general public; or uses them for a particular religious community or caste; or if the income of the trust is used for the benefit of any trustees.

The government has also moved to amend provisions to discourage anonymous donations to universities, hospitals and other charitable organisations. At present, though only that portion of anonymous donation that exceeds 5% of the total donations is taxed at 30%, the trust or society gets the benefit of reducing its total income by the entire amount that has been anonymously donated.

However, as per the amendment, only that portion of the anonymous donation that is taxed is eligible for reduction from the total income.

Dirty Money in Trusts

Money “laundering”

Only a fool holds dirty money in his own name. The world’s financial system offers safer and friendlier ways to hide the proceeds of crime. Shell companies–those with no real operations–are one, phoney trusts and foundations are another (see “Trusts: The weak link”).

Belatedly, life is getting a bit more difficult for tax evaders, money launderers and those who abet them. One big move–now backed by the British government–is to oblige limitedliability companies to give details of their real owners. This newspaper has argued in favour of such a duty: limited-liability status is a kind of public subsidy (if the firm goes bust, the shareholders are not responsible for its debts). It was never meant to be a means of concealing ownership. Yet in many places it is just that: only six of 69 jurisdictions surveyed last year by Eurodad, an anti-corruption network, required all types of firm to record beneficial-ownership information.

Spurred by complaints from the police, pressure from campaigners and public distaste for tax-dodgers, the British government wants not only to set up a proper registry of beneficial ownership, but also to make its contents public. If the detailed regime matches the promise, this will be an important breakthrough. But Britain should also coax its offshore dependencies into greater openness. Some are conscientious, others less so. Even official investigators can find it hard to get the information they need. America can do more to help, too: states such as Nevada apply scandalously little scrutiny to the identity of those forming companies. European governments are keen to collect more tax, but many have been less eager to make corporate ownership transparent.

Cleaning up corporate ownership will increase public confidence in the financial system. But it is only the start. The misuse of trusts and other non-corporate entities is also a big problem. These have proper purposes, such as managing charitable donations, ring-fencing employee pension plans, safeguarding assets for children or organising wills and bequests. But they too enjoy a legal advantage: they are a way of parking assets. That seems fine as long as the trusts pay tax on profits (just as companies do) and their beneficiaries pay tax on any disbursement or benefit (just as shareholders do).

Instead, trust law has become a murky world. In many places there is no rule that trusts must disclose their existence, let alone pay tax on their earnings. “Orphan assets”, no longer legally owned by the person who put the money into the trust but not yet belonging to the trust’s potential beneficiaries, offer plenty of room for abuse. Some trusts, revealingly, even have flee clauses, where the trustees are obliged to try to change the domicile of the trust if the tax police start asking questions. A structure that was set up to protect the wives of medieval crusaders has ended up being used by the sort of businesspeople who greet the Russian leader as “Vladimir”.

Swiss knives

Far better to concentrate on two simple rules. First, all trusts and foundations should be registered, just as companies are, and their beneficiaries, both actual and potential, should be disclosed. Second, the trustees and the beneficiaries should be legally responsible for reporting any disbursements or benefits, and for making sure the tax is paid on them. Both the European Union and America are tiptoeing in this direction, but Luxembourg, Switzerland and some micro-states are resisting. It would be much better if they worked together. Trusts are a useful vehicle–but not for dodgy goods.

How Indian companies are misusing public trusts to launder their CSR spending

The statutory corporate social responsibility (CSR) norms introduced two years ago were expected to revolutionise funding of social causes, but some sections of India Inc may now be abusing these for laundering of black money, according to sources privy to such transactions.

Some companies are using onhire charitable trusts to fabricate CSR spending, at least two sources who have helped craft and execute such transactions said. They spoke to ET on the condition of anonymity.

India is the first and only country to have statutorily mandated corporate social responsibility for certain class of companies but the law allows a lot of leeway. CSR spends disclosed by companies need not be vetted by statutory auditors unlike other spending. Moreover, financials of charitable trusts also come under little statutory scrutiny. This combination of factors has left the new CSR norms wide open for abuse.

“Such abuse in unlikely in trusts floated by companies themselves. But it is possible where they use external trusts,” says Rusen Kumar, founder director of IndiaCSR, a portal that collates information and developments on CSR from across the country.

According to one person, the modus operandi is simple. If a company is obligated to spend, say, Rs 10 crore on CSR, it writes out a cheque in favour of a trust that works in education, healthcare, environment protection or any of the activities specified by the government. The trust, after deducting its commission, discreetly returns the money in cash to the officials or promoters, instantly turning Rs 10 crore of white money into black. The middleman gets a cut as well.

“Often the promoter pockets the money,” says a chartered accountant who has also helped clients with such deals. Often set up by politicians or rich individuals, these trusts also serve as laundering mechanism for unaccounted money. For example, a politician would set up a trust to build an educational institution. CSR funds would flow into the trust through legitimate banking channels. These funds are returned to the promoters in cash and the actual expenditure on the institution is met with the politician’s illicit hoard. The expenditure is then inflated helping launder the black money.

At the end of the year, the trust gives a report to the company which it duly incorporates in its CSR reporting form called AOC-4. “Though the financials are part of the directors’ report which is audited by external auditors, the AOC-4 itself is not subject to external audit. It is a lacuna,” says Bhaskar Chatterjee, director general and CEO, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA).

ET met a middleman who had just concluded two deals—one for a well-known listed company and another for a smaller firm. He said he had already done cash-back deals worth about Rs 40 crore this year.

How Indian companies are misusing public trusts to launder their CSR spending
.

This is the first year that the CSR norms have come into play. Rules under Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013, mandate that any company with a net worth of over Rs 500 crore or annual revenue of Rs 1,000 crore or net profit of Rs 5 crore has to spend 2 per cent of the average profit of the previous three years on CSR activities.

Public trusts are a favoured route to launder money because they are not adequately governed or monitored. Though some states such as Maharashtra have their own law such as the Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950, trusts are not governed by a nationwide law. If a state law doesn’t exist such as in Delhi, these trusts are governed by the Indian Trusts Act of 1882 that applies to private trusts. There is no centralized repository— like the registrar of companies for corporates—of information on public trusts.

They file annual accounts with the charity commissioner in states where it exists. Elsewhere, like Delhi, the only annual filing is income tax returns. An income tax official told ET that unless there is specific information, these are rarely scrutinized. In short, operations of public trusts remain opaque IICA’s Chatterjee, who was instrumental in drafting the CSR law, says that there is no real system to track these trusts. “The law should be tightened to ensure that money reaches the people it is intended to. If there is any leakage it should be plugged.”

Finance minister Arun Jaitley recently wrote in a Facebook post that bulk of the black money is within the country. He is probably right, but it would take tremendous political will and legislative imagination to choke the black money pipelines.

Who funds India’s political parties? Report says most donors anonymous

It is the best known secret of Indian politics. And it comes as no surprise that India’s national, state and regional parties earned Rs.4,662 crore in the last seven years, mostly in form of donations and contributions, but there is a huge cover of secrecy and lack of transparency in who gave the money to them, a report released by two NGOs has claimed.

The report shows that the Congress has earned the most, Rs. 2,008 crore, between 2004 and 2011 and its annual income has gone up steadily. At number two is the BJP, which in the same period made Rs. 994 crore. Its finances too improved steadily in the same period.

The report analyses income tax returns of political parties and donation documents made available to the Election Commission. The NGOs, Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW), campaign for transparency in the finances and funding of political parties.

The NGOs say that there is no standardised format for political parties to declare their incomes. A major source of income for all parties is the sale of “coupons” instead of receipts. Voluntary contributions and donations are also on top of the list of sources of income. None of these, the NGOs’ report says, are transparent ways to making and declaring money.

To bring some transparency into political funding, the Representation of People Act of 1951 says that political parties must declare details of contributions of more than Rs. 20,000. This report though points out major loopholes, like parties declaring every single contribution ofRs. 20,000 made by any person at one time. But if several donations totalling to more than Rs.20,000 are made by one person or company in one year, then parties interpret it differently. That leaves them the option of breaking up donations into amounts less than Rs. 20,000.

The BSP (which is third on the list in terms of income) for instance, has shown an income ofRs. 172 crore in between 2009 and 2011 but not declared a single contribution of more than Rs.20,000. The CPM, which made almost Rs. 150 crore in that period, has shown only 1.39 per cent of contributions of more than Rs. 20,000. For the same period, Congress has shown 11.89 per cent and BJP 22.76 per cent.

The parties with highest “donations” are the Telengana Rashtra Samiti at 99.98 per cent and Lok Janshakti Party at 89.88 per cent.

The other major source of income for the major parties is also donations from corporate houses. The report has a list of which corporate house made how much donation and to which party. Most of them contribute to both the major national parties, the Congress and the BJP. For instance, the General Electoral Trust made a donation of Rs. 36.41 crore to Congress and Rs. Rs. 26.07 crore to BJP between 2004 and 2011. Torrent Power similarly gaveRs. 14.15 crore to Congress and Rs. 13 crore to BJP. And a lot of the companies are new ones involved in infrastructure like power, steel and construction, beating the traditional firms of Tatas and Birlas.

Why are political parties not under RTI ambit: Supreme Court asks Centre, EC

The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought responses from the Centre, the Election Commission and six political parties, including Congress and BJP, on a plea to declare all national and regional political parties “public authorities” to bring them under the ambit of the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

“Issue notice,” a bench comprising Chief Justice HL Dattu and justices Arun Kumar Mishra and Amitava Roy said.

The Association for Democratic Reforms, an NGO, has also sought a direction that the political parties be asked to declare all donations, including those below Rs 20,000 also.

Lawyer Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO, contended that political parties were public authorities and hence amenable to the RTI Act.

The Central Information Commission, in its detailed order, had held that political parties were public authorities and hence should disclose the information under RTI Act.

“Political parties do not have to pay the income tax on the donations and, moreover, the donations below Rs 20,000 are not to be disclosed under the law by them,” the lawyer said, adding that these parties also controlled the legislature and the law-making process.

Earlier, the NGO had approached SC seeking transparency and accountability in functioning of recognised national and regional political parties.

It had claimed that the political parties received huge sums of money in form of donations and contributions from corporates, trusts and individuals but do not disclose complete information about the source of such donations.

In its plea, the NGO had urged the apex court to direct all national and regional parties to mandatorily disclose details about their income as well as expenditure.

It had also sought declaration of entire details of donations and funding received by the political parties, irrespective of the amount donated and details of donors making donations to them and to electoral trusts.

The petition had claimed that political parties enjoyed a stronghold over their elected MPs and MLAs under Schedule 10 of the Constitution that makes it compulsory for members of either Houses of Parliament or state legislatures to abide by the directions of their parties, failing which they stand to be disqualified.

RTI applicable to Trusts, institutions indirectly funded by govt

In a recent judgement, the State Information Commissioner Vijay Kuvalekar has said that Trusts or institutions that are not directly substantially funded by the government, but still indirectly receive funds to run schools, courses, colleges, come under the Right to Information (RTI), Act.

Kuvalekar, in his judgement said that indirectly, since the parent institute is getting the funds for institutes run by them, the RTI is applicable.
The judgement came in the wake of former member of Shikshan Prasarak Mandali (SPM), B B Jambhulkar who raised an RTI query with the SPM to get details on admission having cited corruption.
Jambhulkar said, “The SPM, however, denied to reveal the information as the SPM Trust was not funded by the government. Besides, I asked the Trust to give me details of the appointment of over 400 members of the Trust.”
The information commissioner, however, said that, “It is clear that the Trust is receiving funds to run other institutes as seen in the books of accounts. In such a case, it is liable to reveal any information as sought by the RTI applicant.”

Incidentally, the Income Tax department recently cancelled the registration of SPM as a charitable trust’. Jambhular had asked the query regarding a list of names of the students who have sought admission at Ramnarian Ruia college and R A Poddar college of Commerce and Economics, Mumbai.

PILs Covered up by Supreme Court

Image result for reliance company images

“There is a higher court than the court of justice and that is the court of conscience It supercedes all other courts. ”
– Mahatma Gandhi

Salary of Chief Justice of India Rupees 100000 per month & salary of supreme court judge Rupees 90000 per month plus 5 star heritage bungalow , 5 star air / train travel , 5 star health care facility , etc all at tax payers expense

Hunger Deaths Malnutrition Deaths Poverty Earning Less than Rupees 32 per day

Honest Hard Working Child Laborers Earning Less Than Rupees 32 per day

Corrupt Dishonest Criminal Public Servants Earning More than Rupees 5000 per day Murderers of Justice

Ill-gotten Wealth of Corrupt Public Servants

Murderers of Justice Shame to You

Follow me at
http://www.facebook.com/people/Nagaraj-Mysore-Raghupathi/513253184 ,
http://www.amnesty.org/en/user/naghrw ,
http://twitter.com/naghrw ,

A – Z of Manipulation of Indian Legal System

http://www.scribd.com/doc/187575206/A-Z-of-Manipulation-of-India-Legal-System ,

http://www.scribd.com/doc/173854541/Chief-Justice-of-India-A-Criminal ,

SHAME TO CORRUPT RAPIST JUDGES OF INDIA

EDITORIAL : WAKE UP Corrupt Judges & Police of India – Bapuji’s dandi march- the origin of civil dis-obedience movement

Greetings on the birthday of our bapuji , Mahatma Gandhi on 02nd October. Just hanging photograph of Gandhi in office room , court hall or police station won’t serve any purpose. Before gandhi’s photo only many corrupt practices , injustices are enacted by public servants. Many of our public servants , Judges & Police are even unfit to sit before Mahatma Gandhi’s photograph , let alone invoke mahatma’s name during speech or court ruling. Let those very Judges & Police first learn to follow ideals of Mahatma Gandhi in their official capacity as well as personal capacity. The public servants enjoy luxuries , 5 star non veg meals , alcoholic drinks all at tax payers expense. These judges give judgements running into hundreds of pages with moral guidance , great quotes to commoners , police use filthy language , 3rd degree torture methods against innocents , commoners , when there are rich crooks , criminals justice kowtows before their feet. No brilliance , quotes of judges , no bravery , valour of police , why ?

Inspite of our repeated appeals for justice , judges are mum.

1. Are judges not interested in apprehending criminals & recovering crores of public money ?

2. Are judges not interested in apprehending master minds behind Late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi assassination ?

3. Are judges not interested in prosecuting greedy , corrupt industrialists ?

4. Are judges not interested in apprehending greedy , corrupt industrialist of RPG enterprises ?

5. Are judges not interested to apprehend criminals within RBI & BRBNMPL ?

6. Are judges not interested to do their duties to protect fundamental , human rights of commoners ?

7. Are judges not interested to do their duties , to legally prosecute their corrupt colleagues ?

8. If not , why those judges & police are not quitting their jobs , pave the way for a honest person ?
It is on this day in 12/03/1930, mahatma gandhi led people to dandi in gujarath state,india , to peacefully protest against the atrocious, illegal tax levied by the occupiers-britishers on natural salt. This non-violent, civil dis-obedience movement soon became a mass movement throught india & shook the very foundations of the colonial british government . it is an important milestone in our freedom struggle.
Today, in india even after 1947’s independence commoner’s are yet to relish the fruits of independance. Criminals have occupied the seats of power , in their greed for power & money are violating the fundamental/human rights of commoners. The saving grace is that still a few honest people are here & there in seats of power. We the commoners must come together & support those honest people in their endeavours. towards , this objective on this holy day SOS e Voice for Justice on web was born.
Let us build ram rajya of mahatma’s dream through non violent means within the existing democratic framework .that ram rajya is aptly described by poet shri. Ravindranath tagore as,
Where the mind is without fear & the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches it’s arms towards
perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost it’s way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom , my father
Let my country awake.
Jai hind. Vande mataram.

Your’s sincerely,

Nagaraja.M.R.

RELIANCE INDUSTRIES LIMITED – WHERE IS ACCOUNTABILITY?

Dear mukesh & anil ambani,

The reliance industries has always got a favourable treatment from the state & central governments.there are allegations that ,

1.years ago, the central government gave import concessions for import of certain raw materials of textile sector ,which hugely benefitted the P.F.Y & TEXTILE projects of your’s ie reliance industries.

2.the O.N.G.C which has painstakingly surveyed the oil & gas reserves & prepared a list of lists,gave that list & you got godavari basin oil & gas project from the government .O.N.G.C could have developed it & earned millions.

3.few months back you were charged both by the government & cellular operators (GSM) that you are giving S.T.D & ROAMING FACILITIES to your reliance phone subscribers.your’s was only a W.L.L. they even claimed that you are misusing a legal loophole & causing crores of losses to the government & other GSM operators. however while the issue was before the T.R.A.I, the trai legalized your actions by announcing unified licence for telecom operators.

4.now you are charged by the government of re-routing ISD CALLS as local calls,thereby causing crores of losses to the government & BSNL.this time also you may get the reprieve from the government. the government ,if a commonman does not pay his electric bills in time slaps interest & cuts down the electric supply immediately. however the same government ,even if your company has been alleged of causing crores of rupees losses to the government & other players, always enacts favourable laws for you like a SANTA CLAUS.

WILL YOU PLEASE CLARIFY mr.mukesh ambani & mr.anil ambani?
the TRAI announced unified licence regime in haste that too with retrospective effects.so all the charges against reliance were dropped. in the same vein as unified licence got retrospective effect , why not the government re-imburse the differece amount out of hefty fees collected from other cellular operators ? take the reliance fees as bench mark.anyway , finally commonman is the looser.

PIL – Legal Prosecution of Government officials , Public Servants involved in Reliance Scams

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA ORIGINAL JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL WRIT PETITION NO. OF 2015

IN THE MATTER OF

NAGARAJA . M.R ,

editor , SOS e Clarion of Dalit & SOS e Voice for Justice ,

# LIG 2 , No 761 , HUDCO First Stage , Laxmikantanagar ,

Hebbal , Mysore – 570017 , Karnataka State

…..Petitioner

Versus

Honourable Cabinet Secretary , PMO , Government of India & Others

….Respondents

PETITION UNDER ARTICLE 12 to ARTICLE 35 & ARTICLE 51A OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA FOR ISSUANCE OF A WRIT IN THE NATURE OF

MANDAMUS UNDER ARTICLE 32 & ARTICLE 226 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA.

To ,

Hon’ble The Chief Justice of India and His Lordship’s Companion

Justices of the Supreme Court of India. The Humble petition of the Petitioner above named.

MOST RESPECTFULLY SHOWETH :

1. Facts of the case:

B . Loot of natural resources , telecom spectrum & public property in India and illegal aid to those criminals by government officials.

2. Question(s) of Law:

Are government officials , telecom , petroleum , finance department officials , police & revenue officials who aided loot , above Law & can go scot free ?

3. Grounds:

Requests for equitable justice , legal prosecution & punishment of guilty government officials and public servants .

4. Averment:

Give what action has been taken by government of india or state governments or other statutory bodies against reliance industries for it’s irregularities in telecom , oil sector , etc.

That the present petitioner has not filed any other petition (which are admitted by courts) in any High Court or the Supreme Court of India on the subject matter of the present petition.

PRAYER:

In the above premises, it is prayed that this Hon’ble Court may be pleased:

(ii) Hereby , I do request the honourble supreme court of india to legally prosecute guilty officials mentioned in the above said report.

(v) to pass such other orders and further orders as may be deemed necessary on the facts and in the circumstances of the case.

FOR WHICH ACT OF KINDNESS, THE PETITIONER SHALL BE DUTY BOUND, EVER PRAY.

Date : 28th November 2015………………………………Filed By : Nagaraja.M.R.

Place : Mysuru India…………………………………………..Petitioner in person

10 things you should know about the Reliance KG-D6 gas deal

Reacting to Arvind Kejriwal’s presser where he said that an FIR will be filed against Mukesh Ambani, current oil minister Veerappa Moily and former oil minister Murli Deora over the gas pricing formula, Moily said that we should sympathize with his ignorance since kejriwal doesn’t know how the government functions. He reiterated that the norms were being followed and there is a system for fixing prices.

ALSO READ: Kejriwal orders FIR against Mukesh, Moily

So who is actually ignorant in this case? Were the norms actually followed or has Kejriwal raised some valid points.
ALSO READ:T N Ninan: One more!

Here is a refresher and ready reckoner on the entire KG D6 gas basin controversy.

1) What is KG D6 basin?

Krishna Godavari (KG) Basin is spread across 50,000 sq km in the Krishna River and Godavari river basins near the coast of Andhra Pradesh. The site Dhirubhai-6 (D6) is where Reliance Industries discovered the biggest gas reserves in India. In government records, the 7,645 sq km block is known as KG-DWN-98/1. The KG basin is considered to be the largest natural gas basin in India.

2) How did Reliance Industries get into KG basin?

Government of India opened up hydrocarbon exploration and production (E&P) in the country to private and foreign players in 1991. Small and medium sized blocks were opened up in this round which was followed up by giving out bigger blocks in 1999 as per the New Exploration and Licensing Policy (NELP). Through NELP, Reliance bagged the rights to explore the D6 block.

3) Did government have a role after the block was handed over?

Since all mining resources belong to the people of India, government monitors the exploration and production of these. In the case of oil and gas sector, government enters into contractual relationship with the private player through a Production Sharing Contract (PSC). The PSC lays out roles and responsibilities of all parties, specifies the detailed procedures to be followed at different stages of exploration, development and production. It also specifies the cost recovery and profit sharing in the contract. Directorate General of Hydrocarbon (DGH) monitors the PSC. A PSC was signed between the government of India (GOI) and undivided Reliance Industries and its minority partner Niko Resources (10 per cent stake) for exploration and production of oil and gas.

4) What happened to KG D6 when the Reliance group split?

Even before production could start from the KG D6 wells, Reliance group was split vertically between the two brothers, with the gas business of Reliance Industries remaining with Mukesh Ambani, the elder brother. The brothers fought over this huge reserve of gas even though it was not theirs in the first place. The very first line of a production sharing contract clearly says that “By virtue of article 297 of the Constitution of India, Petroleum is a natural state in the territorial waters and the continental shelf of India is vested with the Union of India”.

The brothers while splitting their father’s empire split the gas reserves too. A family pact between the two brothers, which was never made public till the issue blew out of proportion, was at the core of the dispute. Anil Ambani owned RNRL (Reliance Natural Resources Ltd) citing the agreement by the brothers in 2005, claimed it had rights to gas from Reliance KG basin for 17 years at $2.34 per mmBtu (million British thermal unit).The Supreme Court finally settled the matter by saying that ‘the government owns the gas till it reaches its ultimate consumer and parties must restrict their negotiation within the conditions of the government policy’.

Here the role of the government needs to be highlighted. None of the ministries involved in the process, including the oil ministry which Moily now represents, raised the point that the gas reserves belonged to the country and was not a property of the Ambani family. Even the Prime Minister, ManMohan Singh meekly requested the brothers to settle their differences in the interests of the country.

But how did the Ambani brothers arrive at this magic figure of $2.34 per mmBtu when there was no benchmark. In fact ONGC was supplying gas to the government at half the rate.

5) How did Anil Ambani arrive at the price of $2.34 per mmBtu for KG basin gas?

In June 2004, National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) invited bids for supply of gas for its 2600 MW power plant in Kawas and Gandhar. Reliance Industries, hopeful of starting production of gas by the time NTPC’s power plant is ready bid for the project and was awarded it as the lowest ‘techno-commercial’ bidder. A Letter of Intent (LOI) was issued to Reliance Industries to supply 132 trillion units of gas per annum to NTPC for 17 years at a price of $2.34 per mmBtu. Anil Ambani used this as a basis for asking gas for his power plant.

6) Why is the NTPC-Reliance dispute all about?

Reliance Industries refused to sign the contract for supply of gas. Jairam Ramesh, the Minister of Power in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha in 2009 said that “After issuance of LOI, RIL did not come forward to sign the Gas Sale and Purchase Agreement and sought major changes in the draft GSPA.In spite of all the efforts (by NTPC) RIL did not sign the GSPA agreed during the bidding process.”

NTPC dragged Reliance to Bombay High Court on December 20, 2005 but unfortunately the case that has dragged on. The case after nine years is still sub judice. Here again the government’s disinterest in protecting the interests of its own PSU has been a matter of much debate.

While NTPC was fighting the case with Reliance in the Bombay High Court, the government referred the matter to an Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) in 2007 headed by none other than the current President Pranab Mukherjee, who was then the finance minister. EGoM approved a rate hike of $4.2 per mmBtu of gas. This decision was taken without a single unit of gas coming out of the KG basin.

Reliance grabbed at this opportunity and said that it could not supply gas at a price lower than the mandated price set by the government.

7) How did Pranab Mukherjee arrive at the price of $4.2 mmBtu for gas?

The price was arrived by Reliance through its ‘price discovery mechanism’. As per a Reliance crafter formula, user companies were asked to quote a price which gave them a choice of arriving at a value between $4.54 and $4.75 per mmBtu. Reliance initially forwarded a figure of $4.59 which was later brought down to $4.3, but Pranab Mukherjee claimed victory by announcing a figure of $4.2 per mmBtu.

The brazenness of the entire exercise by the government can be seen from the fact that the objections raised by the Principal Advisor, Power and Energy to the government of India, Surya P Sethi along with the then cabinet secretary were ignored by the government. Surya questions the recommendation saying that nowhere is the cost of production more than $1.43.

8) Is it exploration or exploitation?

A CAG report released in 2011 (initiated in 2007 but delayed due to non-co-operation) on Performance Audit of Hydrocarbon PSCs castigated the oil ministry along with Reliance to retain its entire KG-D6 block in contravention of the PSC. As per the PSC, Reliance should have relinquished 25 per cent of the total area outside the discoveries in 2004 and 2005, but the entire area was declared as a discovery area (after initial objections) and the company was allowed to retain it. Without drilling adequate wells, Reliance kept on claiming that there was potential for petroleum. In CAG’s words this was done to confuse potential/prospectivity with actual discovery of hydrocarbons. The move allowed Reliance to keep the entire area to itself without following the norms laid under the PSC.

In a recent report CAG has said that Reliance moved directly from discovery to commercial production, skipping the intermediate appraisal programme step required as under PSC. CAG asks, without an appraisal programme how did the government and DGH ascertain the amount of gas in the well? And if they did not know how much gas was there in the well, what is the logic and basis of blaming Reliance of hoarding gas. Further, as pointed out by CAG, how did DGH assure itself of reliability of the development plan, production rate and production costs without the appraisal report?

9) Why more investments are bad?

CAG pointed out that as per the PSC, more investments, especially in initial stages would mean more profit for the operator and less for the government. This structure gives inadequate incentive for operators to reduce capital expenditure and provides them with substantial incentives to ‘front-end’ capital expenditure. Share of government profit varies from 85 per cent in a low investment scenario to 5 per cent in a high investment scenario. This explains the case of exaggerated investment made against Reliance Industries.

Incidentally, as pointed out by V Ranganathan of IIM Bangalore in his article in Economic Times, the case of exaggerated investment was first pointed out by Anil Ambani, where he pointed out that investment as per Reliance’s plan is increasing four times but production is expected to only double. Reliance revised its production estimates from 40 mmscmd (million metric standard cubic metres per day) to 80 mmscmd while increasing its investment from $2.4 billion to $8.8 billion.

10) How was the new pricing formula arrived at?

Former RBI governor C Rangarajan came out with a formula which has been followed nowhere in the world, which has resulted in Reliance (and other players too) getting a price on import parity basis. Surya Sethi, former Principal Adviser, Power and Energy, Government of India does not mince words when he asks the Prime Minister in an open letter [Read here] not to burden the nation with Rangarajan Committee’s madness that only benefit a select few.

Conclusion

Sethi’s open letter to the Prime Minister sums up the entire issue when he points out that the CAG’s findings reveal how crony capitalism benefited RIL. The pre-qualification norms were diluted to ensure RIL qualified, the claimed size of gas discoveries, the field development plans and the investment outlays proposed escaped rigorous due diligence says Sethi. Above all, the company’s commitments under the PSC on gas output were not enforced.

The entire episode stinks of anything but natural gas. While Moily may claim that system was followed, there is enough evidence out there that says otherwise.

THE MEGA 4G SCAM BY GOVERNMENT AND RELIANCE

After the 2G spectrum allocation scam of the UPA Government, another major telecom scandal in the allocation of 4G spectrum (BWA) has come to light by the recent CAG report. In fact, AAP leader and senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan has filed a PIL in the Supreme Court seeking cancellation of Reliance Industries’ telecom license and a through criminal investigation. Supreme Court had issued notice to Government and Reliance on that petition on 9th May 2014.

The factum of the scam is this. The UPA Government in March 2013 allowed a back-door entry of Reliance Jio Infocomm into voice telephony in violation of the judgment of the Supreme Court in the 2G case. This was done at the price discovered in 2001 of Rs 1,658 crores for a pan-India licence, which is the same price that was struck down by the Supreme Court in the 2G judgment because of having caused a huge loss to the public exchequer.

During May-June 2010 the auctions for 3G and 4G were concluded. The 3G auction fetched Rs 16,750.58 crore for 5+5 MHz spectrum in 2100 MHz (or 2.1 GHz) band. Thus, per MHz price worked out to be Rs 1,675 crore. Immediately, after the 3G auction, the 4G auction began which fetched Rs 12,847.77 crore for 20 MHz pan-India license in the 2300 MHz (or 2.3 GHz) band. This works out to be Rs 642.39 crore per MHz. This was so because all documents stated that 4G spectrum was for data services only, whereas 3G spectrum can be used for both data and voice telephony.

Infotel Broadband Services Pvt Ltd (IBSPL) emerged as the only company to have acquired pan-India 4G spectrum. IBSPL had an internet license since November 2007 and had just one subscriber with revenue of Rs 16.28 lakhs during 2009-10, and its authorized share capital was Rs 3 crore and the paid up capital was Rs 2.51 crore. Infotel Digicomm Pvt Ltd (IDPL) held 99.99% share of the IBSPL at the time of submission of application in March 2010.

Within hours of completion of 4G auction on 11.06.2010, IBSPL increased the authorised share capital from Rs 3 crore to Rs 6,000 crore. On 17.06.2010, the company authorized its Board of Directors to allot 475 crore equity share of Rs 10 each to Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and 25 crore equity share of Rs 10 to Infotech Digicomm Pvt Ltd (IDPL) aggregating to the equity capital of Rs 5,000 crore. On the same day, the company also decided to change from a private company to Public Limited Company (Infotel Broadband Services Ltd). Thus, the company within a week of winning the 4G spectrum disposed off 95% shares to RIL while 5% was retained by IDPL. Much later in March 2013, the company was renamed as Reliance Jio Infocomm Pvt Ltd.

CAG has found that the Government did not protect its interest at the time of framing eligibility criteria for the 4G auction. It allowed participation of internet (ISP) licensees without ensuring adequate safeguards in terms of net-worth of the companies participating in the auction. It found that while a UAS licensee or even a new company without a license was allowed to participate in the 4G auction, but they had to pass through the test of net-worth in order to become eligible, but no such criteria was specified for the existing internet (ISP) licensees participating in 4G auction. CAG observed that this criterion was important even for ISP-A licensees as they had to participate in the bidding where the reserve price was fixed at Rs 1,750 crore per pan-India license for 20 MHz spectrum in 2.3 GHz band. The only company which won the pan-India 4G license, was an ISP-A licensee, Infotel Broadband Services Pvt Ltd (IBSPL), a HFCL promoted group company. CAG has stated that IBSPL was given the ISP-A license in November 2007, and it had just one leased-line subscribers as on December 2009 and total revenue of just Rs 16.28 lakh for FY 2009-10. The paid-up capital was just Rs 2.51 crore and 99.99 per cent of it was held by Infotel Digicom Pvt Ltd at the time of submission of application for the 4G auction in March 2010. Thus, this company could not be termed as a serious player. And there were no checks in-built in the auction process to eliminate such non-serious players, CAG has observed.

After the company was taken over Reliance Industries, the Government allowed it to provide voice telephony (which was earlier prohibited) without conducting a fresh auction. This was done at the rate of Rs 1,658 crore which was fixed in 2001, and had been struck down by the Supreme Court in the 2G case for causing huge loss to public exchequer. The CAG has now concluded that besides vitiating the auction process, an undue advantage of Rs 22,842 crore was given to RIL at the cost of exchequer. The relevant part of the CAG’s report is reproduced below: –

It was found that the basis of the decision i.e. payment of entry fee of Rs 1,658 crore by ISP licensee for a permission to Pan India provision of mobile voice services using BWA spectrum considered by the DoT Committee, Telecom Commission and the MOC&IT, was primarily intended to fill the gap between the eligibility criterion stipulated for participation in the 3G / BWA auction in 2010 as UAS / CMTS licensees had paid entry fee of Rs 1,658 crore while ISP licensees had paid only Rs 30 lakh.

The DoT Committee, Telecom Commission and the MOC&IT however ignored the fact that the quantum of entry fee i.e. Rs 1,658 crore was basically discovered in 2001 through the bidding for the 4th Cellular licenses. Market conditions since then have changed drastically, and this price needed to be modified to reflect the present value. Neither the DoT Committee / TC under the Chairmanship of the Secretary DoT nor the MOC&IT felt the need for revision of the price discovered in 2001 as the entry fee for UASL in 2013, even when the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India had cancelled 122 licenses granted in 2008 on the basis of the same entry fee stating that it was impossible for them to approve the action of the DoT.

Therefore, by permitting ISPs to provide mobile voice service using BWA spectrum won in 2010 auction post-auction, the government has brought ISP licensees with BWA spectrum at par with UAS / CMTS 3G spectrum winners so far as provision of services are concerned – Voice, Data, etc., and post auction interpretation of such vital nature would appear to be arbitrary, inconsistent and not appropriate. Hence, IBSPL, now Reliance JioInfocomm, appeared to have been accorded undue advantage of Rs 22,842 crore i.e. the difference of the proportionate prices for 20 MHz block size in 2.1 GHz spectrum band (3G spectrum) and 2.3 GHz spectrum band (BWA spectrum) plus the Net Present Value of the entry fee for UASL at the end of FY 2009-10 (Rs 20,653 crore plus Rs 3,847 crore – Rs 1,658 crore). Besides, the sanctity of the entire auction process has been rendered vitiated due to post auction interpretations and interventions after three years. It was therefore no surprise that Reliance JioInfocomm was among the first group of companies which applied for UL immediately after introduction of the scheme and obtained the Letter of Intent (LoI). Had the spectrum blocks been specified and declared as liberalised spectrum blocks i.e. open for all technology / services in the NIA in February 2010, there was no doubt that bidders would have taken informed decision for putting up their bid and the market discovered price would have been significantly different for 3G and BWA spectrum.

Therefore, the Aam Aadmi Party demands the NDA government to immediately cancel the telecom license and allotment of 4G spectrum given to Reliance Industries and also a registration of an FIR by the CBI for a through criminal investigation into this scam involving Reliance Industries and the UPA Government.

Petroleum Ministry document leak: It’s a Rs 10,000 cr scam, claims accused Santanu Saikia; R-ADAG office raided

The dramatic claim comes after police arrested five senior executives from top energy firms and two consultants, including Sanatnu Saikia in the Petroleum Ministry ‘leak’ case.

A key accused in the corporate espionage case today claimed that it was a Rs 10,000 crore scam that he was trying to uncover as police said documents seized from corporate executives related to “national security” that can attract Official Secrets Act provisions.

Meanwhile, a local court remanded the five arrested corporate executives in police custody till February 24 for further questioning. Delhi Police also conducted raids here and in nearby Noida looking for stolen documents from offices of petroleum companies.

Santanu Saikia, a former journalist, now running an energy consultant running a website, claimed to reporters outside an Crime Branch office that it was a Rs 10,000 crore scam, which he was trying to uncover. “Please quote me,” he said as policemen took him in for interrogation.

Reacting to his claim, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said Saikia was saying such things for covering up his own defence.

“Let him spill out all the information he has. The primary accusation is that somebody stole the papers from the ministry. Police is investigating. Anybody has the right to tell everything to the police,” he said.

Pradhan said police is doing an independent job and everything will be clear after investigation. Law will take its course, whoever they may be, he said when asked about the arrest of executives of private companies.

Producing the five corporate executives arrested yesterday before Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Khanagwal, the police said, “National interest was taken for a ride in the case.

“Documents related to national security have also been recovered. This may attract charges under the Official Secrets Act.”

The five–Shailesh Saxena from RIL, Vinay Kumar from Essar, KK Naik from Cairns, Subhash Chandra from Jubilant Energy and Rishi Anand from Reliance ADAG–who were produced in the court in police custody till February 24 for further questioning.

The police told the court that they have to consult the concerned ministries regarding the documents which have been recovered from the possession of the accused and their custodial interrogation was required to confront them with the same.

These five accused were procuring these sensitive documents at the behest of their senior officials, some of whom might be interrogated in the ongoing investigation, police said.

The advocates appearing for these five accused vehemently opposed the police’s plea seeking five days police custody, contending that their clients have been illegally detained since February 18 and 19.

The defence counsel also contended that there was nothing to be recovered from their clients and the police have not told the court regarding the specific allegations against these accused.

With the arrest of these five accused, the total number of arrests in the case rose to 12. Seven others were produced in the court yesterday out of whom four were sent to police custody till February 23 and three were remanded to judicial custody for two weeks.

Police sources said that Subhash Chandra, a senior executive with Jubilant Energy, who was arrested along with four other top officials of energy companies yesterday, was taken to Jain’s office in the morning.

After searching Jain’s office, the police team took him to the Noida office of Jubilant Energy. His office and some other rooms were searched by the police to recover stolen documents.

Office of another petroleum company whose executive was also one of them arrested was also raided by the police. Laptop and computers of the arrested officials have been seized by investigators which would be sent for forensic analysis.

Asked about the issue, Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi said, “We have searched places which were necessary for the course of investigation. We may further raid places as our aim is to reach the bottom of the whole thing.”

The police chief also said that investigation is on in the case and it will end only when a charge sheet will be filed.

“We need to know since how long this has been going on and who all benefited from it,” said a senior official.

According to police, all these company executives allegedly received stolen documents which have been recovered by police teams during raids from their establishments.

Saxena is Manager, corporate affairs, Reliance Industries Limited(RIL); Chandra is senior executive, Jubilant Energy; Anand is DGM, Reliance ADAG; Vinay is DGM, Essar and Naik is GM, Cairns India.

They have been booked under IPC sections 120 B (criminal conspiracy) and 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property).

The case FIR, produced in a local court yesterday said an input on the National Gas Grid for the Finance Minister’s Budget speech of 2015-16 is among the various “secret” documents recovered from the accused.

The office of Reliance ADAG group at a premier five-star hotel here was also raided today by police in this connection.

“We are basically looking for the stolen documents from the establishments linked to the 12 people we have arrested so far. Searches are being conducted at various places in Delhi and NCR,” said a senior police official associated with the probe.

The raids have been confined to this region and not being carried out “across the country” as was speculated, he added.

Sources, meanwhile, said that police had also stumbled upon another module operated separately from the those arrested so far and their ‘area of operation’ was another plum ministry.

They added that a junior level officer and some more corporate executives are under scanner in this connection and arrests are expected by Monday.

KG basin controversy: SC seeks response from Reliance

The Supreme Court on Friday granted six weeks time to Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) to respond to the final CAG report, which found alleged irregularities including in payments made to the contractors on drilling of D6 wells at the Krishna-Godavari basin.

The apex court posted the next hearing for March 20 during which it would examine the RIL’s response to the CAG report that had sought disallowance of $357.16 million (about Rs 2,179 crore) expenditure RIL incurred on drilling of wells and payments to contractors in KG-D6.

Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar said the Centre can make comments on the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) recommendations and findings only after getting the report of the Parliament’s Public Account Committee which is examining it.

The order was passed during a brief hearing of petitions filed in 2013 by senior CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta and NGO Common Cause, challenging the then UPA government decision to double the price of natural gas from $4.2 to $8.4 per mmbtu and seeking cancellation of RIL’s contract for exploration of oil and gas from the KG basin.

The third PIL on the issue has been filed by advocate M L Sharma. A bench headed by Justice T S Thakur also allowed Dasgupta and other petitioners to file their response to the NDA government’s fresh guidelines which would “supersede” the earlier UPA dispensation’s policy on price fixation for natural gas, including that from KG basin, which has been the bone of contention between the Centre and RIL.

The Solictor General on November 14, 2014 had said before the bench, which also comprised justices J Chelameswar and Kurian Joseph, that the ‘new domestic natural gas policy’ was approved by the government on October 18 raising natural gas price to $5.61 per mmbtu from November 1 and had said that “recommendation of the Rangarajan Committee would not be given effect”.

The Rangarajan formula on gas pricing was approved by the previous UPA government. Rangarajan was Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the then Prime Minister.

In its second audit of RIL’s eastern offshore KG-D6 block, the CAG on November 28, 2014 recommended disallowing the company from recovering $279.8 million in cost of three wells as well as a part of expenditure the firm had incurred in area which was improperly declared discovery area.

The CAG, in its report tabled in the Parliament, found irregular payment of $427.48 million to contractors, of which it sought disallowance of at least $77.36 million cost. Earlier RIL’s senior advocate Harish Salve had said “he is not happy with the new guidelines (on gas pricing)”.

While the Centre has maintained that the issue raised by Dasgupta has been addressed with the new guidelines, advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO, had said several other issues needed to be argued.

He had said that the draft CAG report itself suggested that RIL “hugely over-estimated” the reserves of the KG gas block and other irregularities are cited.

Among the other issues, the NGO has alleged that fraud was committed by RIL requiring government to take back the field and there was a need for court-monitored probe on the issue.

Dasgupta and the NGO had said government should be asked not to make “any further increase” in the price of gas produced by RIL from KG basin.

RIL has refuted the allegation of extraneous consideration for the increase in the gas price from $4.2 to $8.4 per mmbtu for the gas taken from the existing fields like KG D-6 basin. RIL had submitted that the gas output from KG basin has fallen to 8 mscmd against expected 80 mscmd due to “technical reason”.

M Veerappa Moily, the then Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, was also named as one of the respondents in the petitions. The PILs have also sought imposition of penalty on private parties for failure in adhering to commitments.

The petitioners have sought a direction for a thorough audit by CAG of the working of the production-sharing contract (PSC) governing KG block, gold plating by RIL, underproduction by RIL and all related issues.

The former CPI MP had alleged collusion between the government and the company, saying RIL “is holding country’s energy security to ransom”. He also said that natural resources belong to the citizens and the government.

The Common Cause has supported Dasgupta’s arguments and referred to controversial intercepted telephonic conversations between former corporate lobbyist Niira Radia with others to support the allegation of collusion.

The NGO has urged that Centre should wait for the outcome of the two petitions pending before the apex court.

Kejriwal trains his guns on Reliance Industries Limited ( RIL ), wants gas pact cancelled

Kejriwal attributes Jaipal’s ouster to his refusal to carry out Mukesh Ambani’s diktat
India Against Corruption on Wednesday launched a scathing attack on the NDA government as well as the Manmohan Singh government for protecting the interests of corporates, especially Reliance Industries Limited (RIL). It demanded that the government’s contract with RIL be scrapped as the Mukesh Ambani’s company allegedly cut down on production from its KG D6 gas- field to gain huge profits after the proposed gas price revision.
Linking the shifting of Jaipal Reddy from the Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry to his refusal to follow RIL’s diktat to revise the price before the scheduled deadline of April 2014, IAC leader Arvind Kejriwal said Mr. Reddy was shunted out as he refused to bow to RIL, arguing that a price revision would fetch the company an additional profit of Rs. 43,000 crore.
“Mr. Reddy had prepared a note for the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM), in which he mentioned that acceptance of RIL’s demand would mean an additional profit of Rs. 43, 000 crore [to the company]. Most of this gas is used in power and fertilizer production. Increasing the gas price would mean an additional financial burden of Rs. 53,000 crore on the Central and State governments. This would in turn mean higher power and fertilizer prices… or a higher subsidy burden on the taxpayer,” Mr. Kejriwal said in his third expose, after targeting Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra and BJP president Nitin Gadkari.
Mr. Kejriwal, who addressed journalists, along with Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan, said that in 2006, it was Mani Shankar Aiyar who got the axe and Murli Deora was brought in to allow RIL to increase capex from $2.39 billion to $8.8 billion and to increase the gas price from $2.43 per Million Metric British Thermal Units (mmBtu) to $4.2 mmBtu. “We demand that the contract with RIL for the KG D6 be scrapped immediately and the state-run companies like ONGC be given the block for future production. The government should immediately put in place adequate systems to get full production from the KG D6 at the cheapest prices for the country and its people.”
Mr. Kejriwal said that under RIL’s contract, the company was supposed to sell gas at $4.2 per mmBtu until March 2014. But midway, the company wanted the price increased to $14.2 per mmBtu.
Mr. Kejriwal and Mr. Bhushan alleged that to pressure the government to revise the gas price, RIL had substantially reduced production for over the past one year. The total consumption in the country stood at 156 Million Metric Standard Cubic Metre Per Day (mmscmd). RIL was supposed to produce 80 mmscmd from 2009. However, it was turning out just 27 mmscmd. “Production was being artificially kept low to blackmail the government. They are not just hoarding gas but also forcing various consumers to buy gas from abroad. Gas from abroad costs $13 per mmBtu, and if RIL’s demand for increasing the gas price is accepted, it will lead to the shutdown of several gas-based power plants and an increase in power and fertilizer prices. It will result in Rs. 43,000 crore of additional benefits to RIL.”
Mr. Kejriwal said the drastic reduction in gas production forced many gas-based power plants to shut down or run with a reduced capacity. “Today, power from a gas-based power plant costs Rs. 3 a Kwh (Kilowatt hour). If the gas price is increased from $4.2 to $14.2 as demanded by RIL, power rates will go up to Rs. 7 a Kwh. “We urge the people of this country not to allow the government to pass the huge benefit to RIL and [to] flood the Petroleum Ministry and its new Minister, Veerappa Moily, with RTIs [Right to Information questions] … so that he does not dare to undertake any revision. We should not allow this government, which changes Ministers at the instance of Mr. Ambani, to work at the direction of RIL.”
Mr. Kejriwal played the clippings of tapes, involving conversations between corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s son-in-law Rajnan Bhattacharya. “First, the NDA regime favoured RIL in the structuring of the deal in 2000, and various modifications were made thereafter.” Citing the CAG’s report on the KG D6, he alleged that the motivated structuring of the contract could cost the exchequer up to Rs. 1 lakh crore.
He said RIL had signed a contract with state-run NTPC in 2004 to supply gas for its power plants at $2.34 per mmBtu. However, the company backed out of the deal, and the matter was in court. “UPA I or UPA II did not deem it fit to vigorously take up the case of NTPC against RIL, but worked in a proactive manner to get the price revised for RIL gas. The EGoM, headed by the then Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, revised the gas price to $4.2 per mmBTU, and by doing so, it gave RIL an undue benefit of Rs. 8,000 crore.

Kejriwal’s latest: Reliance blackmailing govt, Mukesh Ambani running India

NEW DELHI: S Jaipal Reddy was axed as petroleum minister for refusing a Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries’ proposal to hike charges of gas it supplied to state-run power plants, India Against Corruption’s Arvind Kejriwal charged on Wednesday, demanding that the Krishna Godavari basin allotted to the company be taken back.
“Mukesh Ambani is running the country it seems,” Kejriwal told the media here. “Jaipal Reddy was removed as he refused to hike the charges levied by Reliance Industries to supply gas to the NTPC (National Thermal Power Corp).”
Reliance called the charges “irresponsible”.
According to Kejriwal, the KG basin was awarded to Reliance in 2000 by the NDA government when the company agreed to supply gas to the NTPC for the next 17 years at $2.34 per unit.
But, said Kejriwal, the company revised the rate to $4.25 per unit in 2007 which then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee agreed to as the head of an empowered group of ministers.
“The entire contract was meant to benefit Reliance because … the cost would be determined by the company, and if the cost increases, so will the profit,” he said, adding this was unheard of in business.
The company, he said, revised the rate to $4.2 per unit in 2007, which then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee agreed to as head of an empowered group of ministers, benefiting Reliance to the tune of Rs.10,000 crore.
Kejriwal alleged that in 2006 then petroleum minister Mani Shankar Iyer was removed and Murli Deora brought in to increase Reliance Industries’ capital expenditure from $2.39 billion to $8.8 billion, and to hike gas price from $2.34 per unit to $4.2 per unit.
Later, the company wanted the rate further hiked to $14.2. Jaipal Reddy, who reportedly did not agree to the proposal, was shunted out in Sunday’s cabinet rejig, said the activist-politician.
Kejriwal released to the media a “secret” document of the petroleum ministry that said that accepting the Reliance demand would generate for it an additional profit of Rs 43,000 crore ($8.5 billion).
“In order to pressurize the government, RIL substantially reduced its production of natural gas,” a statement from India Against Corruption said.
“Production has been artificially kept low to blackmail the government. They are not just hoarding the gas but also forcing various consumers to buy gas from abroad.”
When Reliance sought Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s intervention, he asked the attorney general to find out if the gas prices should be hiked or not.
“Why did the PM not show similar concern when NTPC was forced to accept higher gas price from RIL? Why is the PM not pulling up Reliance for not producing gas as per their commitment? Why did the PM not seek legal opinion when the country’s interests were at stake?”
Kejriwal, who was flanked by fellow activists Prashant Bhushan and Manish Sisodia, demanded that Reliance Industries’ “blackmailing” should be immediately stopped.
“Their KG Basin contract should be cancelled. The government should immediately put in place adequate systems to get full production from KG Basin at the cheapest price for the country.”
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) asked the prime minister to respond to IAC and explain why Jaipal Reddy was dropped from the petroleum ministry.
“Is it any malfunction in the ministry that has persuaded Manmohan Singh to effect this change? Or is that Jaipal Reddy was not found a ‘convenient’ minister? Or is this another example of corporate interests taking precedence over national good?” BJP leader Jaswant Singh asked.
After taking on Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra and BJP president Nitin Gadkari, anti-corruption activist-turned-politician Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday charged Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man and chairman of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), with getting undue
related stories
• Cong slams IAC over RIL allegations, questions source of funding
• RIL denies IAC allegations, says chargess made at ‘behest of vested interests’
• BJP to govt: Was Jaipal shifted to benefit RIL?
favours from the government over a contract to develop natural gas fields.
The allegations pertain to RIL’s D-6 block in the Krishna Godavari (KG) basin, India’s largest gas producing field off the eastern coast in Andhra Pradesh, which is being jointly developed by RIL and its partners, Britain’s BP and Canadian firm Niko Resources.
Kejriwal and his colleague, lawyer Prashant Bhushan, termed the deal a “classic case of crony capitalism” and said both the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and Congress-led UPA (United Progressive Alliance) governments were responsible for RIL getting this contract.
The contract, signed in 2000 by the then NDA government, according to Kejriwal, would rob the national exchequer of revenues to the tune of Rs. 45,000 crore if RIL’s demands for a higher price for its gas were met.
The government has not decided yet on a demand by RIL to raise the price of gas from the field to $14.25 per unit from $4.25, the subject of a long-running controversy.
In a brief statement, RIL dismissed the charges as being “devoid of any truth or substance”.
“Irresponsible allegations made by IAC at the behest of vested interests without basic understanding of the complexities of a project of this nature do not merit a response,” it added.
Petroleum minister Veerappa Moily refused to comment.
“I have better things to do,” he said.
“I don’t want to respond.”
The press conference also witnessed high drama when a Congress worker wanted to question Kejriwal, but was heckled by camerapersons and IAC volunteers, and forced to leave the venue.
Kejriwal based his attack on the government and RIL on the so-called ‘Radia tapes’, a collection of phone taps from between 2007 and 2009 in one of which someone thought to be former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya is heard telling RIL and Tata Group’s corporate lobbyist Niira Radia that Ambani had told him that “Congress to apni dukaan hai”.
The unearthing of the Radia tapes had triggered accusations of corporate influence in the distribution of ministers’ portfolios in the UPA’s second term.
On Wednesday, Kejriwal gave this accusation fresh legs by linking Jaipal Reddy’s removal from the petroleum ministry on Sunday to his run-ins with RIL over the pricing of gas.
He also gave a populist spin to his allegations by linking the government’s restriction on the supply of cheap LPG cylinders to the public to the high profits being allowed to RIL.
“We want to know why the PM’s heart beats only for RIL. Why did he not seek the attorney general’s opinion when NTPC was not getting gas at cheap rates?” Kejriwal said.
State-run National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) had sought cheaper gas to fire its power plants.
* In 2006, Mani Shankar Iyer was removed and Murli Deora brought in to increase RIL capex from $ 2.39 billion to $ 8.8 billion and to increase gas price from $2.34 per mmBTU to $ 4.2 per mmBTU
* In 2012, Jaipal Reddy has been removed and Moily brought in to increase gas prices from $ 4.2 per mmBTU to $ 14.2 mmBTU and to condone RIL’s blackmailing of reducing gas production
* Both BJP and Congress involved. BJP signed a sweet deal with RIL in 2000. Congress faithfully implemented it
* If RIL demand of increasing the gas price to $ 14.2 is accepted, it would lead to shut down of several gas based power plants and increase in power and fertilizer prices
* By this deal, RIL would benefit by an additional Rs. 43,000 crore
* In Nira Radiia tapes, Ranjan Bhattacharya (Vajpayee’s son in law) is heard telling Nira that Mukesh Ambani told him –“Congress to ab apni dukaan hai”
* Huge benefits given to RIL in last one decade despite flagrant violations of various agreements by RIL. Benefits to RIL causing serious price rise in the country.
* “In order to pressurize the government, RIL substantially reduced its production of natural gas. Total consumption of natural gas in the country is 156 mmscmd. According to agreement, RIL was supposed to produce 80mmscmd (more than 50% of the total demand) from 2009.”
* “RIL got this contract during NDA regime in the year 2000. The contract was meant to favor RIL right from the beginning. In any business, increase in costs means decrease in profits.”
The IAC press release alleged that performance of RIL so far has been much worse than perhaps the worst performing government department.
1. 4 times cost escalation within 2 years from $ 2.39 billion in 2004 to $ 8.8 billion in 2006.
2. Increase in gas price from $ 2.34 per mmBTU in 2004 to $ 4.2 per mmBTU in 2007 to the present demand of $ 14.2 per mmBTU.
3. Capacity created for producing 80 mmscmd after incurring such a huge cost ends up producing just 27 mmscmd after 12 years.
4. 31 oil wells should have been in production till now. Out of them, just 13 are functional.
Kejriwal and lawyer Prashant Bhushan, a leading member of IAC, alleged the allocation of KG Basin to Reliance is on similar lines as coal block allocation scam. They alleged both Congress and BJP were in ‘Ambani’s pocket’.

REAL STORY OF Late DHIRUBHAI AMBANI of Reliance Industries
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3924530/Polyester-PrinceThe-Real-Story-of-Dhirubhai-AmbaniBanned-in-India

Another Major Scam : Govt. Favours Reliance In KG Basin

The CAG draft report that nails the connivance between Government agencies and Reliance Industries Ltd. leading to huge losses to the Government exchequer is yet another example of the power of corporates in the UPA Government to subvert rules and regulations in their favour.
The CAG has noted that the former Director-General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) permitted Reliance to inflate its “development costs” on the gas extraction in the D6 block of KG basin from 2.47 billion dollars to a whopping 8.84 billion dollars. This money taken by RIL affected the revenues of the Government. Government should prosecute the former DGH without any delay.
The Government’s connivance with RIL has a direct impact on the aam aadmi because increased claims of development cost get reflected in the price of gas given to consumers and also affect the prices of fertilizer and power. Letters have been written to the Prime Minister to institute an independent enquiry into the complaint of artificial jacking up of the capital expenditure by RIL for D6 KG Basin and its hasty approval by the concerned authority to find out the actual cost before gas price is fixed.
In a repeat of the 2-G scam, the Prime Minister’s silence on the issue, has again exposed the UPA Government’s acquiescence to corporate manipulation.
Related posts:
1. The Great Billion Dollar Drug Scam
2. Supreme Snub : Court SIT A Major Embarrassment For Govt
3. Now A Petroleum Scam?
4. The -Reliance KG Gas Scam Prabir Purkayastha, Newsclick
5. Way to Rural Self Reliance: National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM)
6. Demand For JPC On Spectrum Scam :Go Beyond Rhetoric
7. THE ADARSH SOCIETY SCAM A Shocking Exposure of Congress govt Venality – Ashok Dhawale
8. SUPREME COURT VERDICT ON KG BASIN GAS -Dipankar Mukherjee
9. AMBANIS ROW : GOVT HAS LAST WORD ON KG BASIN GAS PRICE : SC
10. POOL PRICING FOR KG BASIN GAS TO HARM ANDHRA PRADESH INTERESTS
11. PRODUCTION OF GAS IN KG BASIN
12. FINDINGS OF ICAI IN SATYAM SCAM CASE

Reliance Communications clears debt of Rs. 2,700 crore

Editorial – Telecom Scams RPG , Reliance ………………

In spite of repeated appeals government has allowed telecom companies to swindle public exchequer. Even the supreme court of india is mum , not taking appropriate actions , why ?

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA ORIGINAL JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL WRIT PETITION NO….. OF 2015

IN THE MATTER OF
NAGARAJA . M.R

editor SOS e Clarion of Dalit & SOS e Voice for Justice
# LIG 2 , No 761 ,, HUDCO First Stage , Laxmikantanagar ,
Hebbal , Mysore – 570017 , Karnataka State
.
….Petitioner

Versus

Cabinet Secretary ( Telecommunications) Government of India & Others
….Respondents

PETITION UNDER ARTICLE 12 to ARTICLE 35 & ARTICLE 51A OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA FOR ISSUANCE OF A WRIT IN THE NATURE OF MANDAMUS UNDER ARTICLE 32 & ARTICLE 226 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA.
To ,
Hon’ble The Chief Justice of India and His Lordship’s Companion
Justices of the Supreme Court of India. The Humble petition of the
Petitioner above named.

2. Eventhough , certain PIJF companies were previously found to be involved in illegal practices , CPIO of DOT / BSNL is hiding information . Thereby , he is trying to shield criminals.

3. By this action CPIO of DOT / BSNL is aiding criminals.

2. Question(s) of Law:
DOT / BSNL has paid crores of rupees to PIJF Telecable manufacturers towards purchase of cables. The money is from public exchequer , people’s money . That public money is swindled by cable manufacturers with tacit support of DOT / BSNL officials. Why no prosecution of DOT / BSNL officials & cable manufacturers ? are they above law ?
3. Grounds:
Requests for equitable justice , Accountability for public money worth crores of rupees.
4. Averment:

Private companies in their greed for money are violating norms in league with public officials. They have caused loss to the public exchequer.
Hereby , I do request the honorable supreme court of India to consider this as a PIL for : “writ of Mandamus” and to issue instructions to the concerned public servants in the following cases to perform their duties & to answer the questions.
The Petitioner has sent many letters / appeals / petitions to supreme court of india & other courts through e-mail , DARPG website & through regular mail requesting them to consider those as PILs. But none of them were admitted , even acknowledgement for receipts were not given. See How duty conscious ,our judges are & see how our judges are sensitive towards life , liberty of citizens , commonmen & see how careless our judges are towards anti national crimes , crimes worth crores of rupees. That the present petitioner has not filed any other petition (which are admitted by courts) in any High Court or the Supreme Court of India on the subject matter of the present petition.

PRAYER:
In the above premises, it is prayed that this Hon’ble Court may be pleased:
(i) Hereby , I do request the honorable supreme court of India to consider this as a PIL for : “writ of Mandamus” and to issue instructions to the concerned public servants in the following cases to perform their duties & to answer the questions.
(ii) to pass such other orders and further orders as may be deemed necessary on the facts and in the circumstances of the case.
FOR WHICH ACT OF KINDNESS, THE PETITIONER SHALL BE DUTY BOUND, EVER PRAY.

Kindly read full details at following web page :

CORPORATE CRIMES RPG CABLES LIMITED

http://crimesatrpg.blogspot.com/ ,

http://crimesatrpg.wordpress.com/ ,

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naghrw/message/218

Dated : 13th June 2015 FILED BY: NAGARAJA.M.R.

Place : Mysuru , India PETITIONER-IN-PERSON

RTI Appeal Not Answered by DOT / BSNL officials

To ,

Shri. L.K. Govil ,

GM (Coordination) & RTI Appellate Authority ,

BSNL Corporate office ,

Room No .27 , IR Hall , Eastern Court Complex ,

Jan Path Road , New Delhi – 110001.

APPEAL UNDER SEC 19 (3) OF RTI ACT 2005 OF GOVERNMENT OF INDIA & GOVERNMENT OF KARNATAKA

FULL NAME OF THE APPLICANT : NAGARAJA.M.R.

ADDRESS OF THE APPLICANT : NAGARAJA.M.R.,

EDITOR , SOS E-VOICE JUSTICE & SOS E-CLARION OF DALIT ,

# LIG-2 / 761, OPP WATER WORKS OFFICE,

HUDCO FIRST STAGE, LAXMIKANTANAGAR,

HEBBAL, MYSORE , KARNATAKA PIN – 570017.

“Power will go to the hands of rascals, , rogues and freebooters. All Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight among themselves for power and will be lost in political squabbles . A day would come when even air & water will be taxed.” Sir Winston made this statement in the House of Commons just before the independence of India & Pakistan. Sadly , the forewarning of Late Winston Churchill has been proved right by some of our criminal , corrupt people’s representatives , police , public servants & Judges. Some of the below mentioned DOT officials fall among the category of churchill’s men – Rogues , Rascals & Freebooters. To my previous RTI requests & appeals they tried covering – up crores worth SCAM by transferring application from one to the other at the end by denying information to me, Does not the DOT possess information with respect to tenders given by it to suppliers. Is it not the duty of DOT QUALITY Circle to monitor the supplies from suppliers ? Then who has got it ? why don’t you transfer the RTI application to that authority or ask for information from them ?

We salute honest few in public service , our whole hearted respects to them. HEREBY , I DO HUMBLY REQUEST YOU TO GIVE ME WRITTEN STATEMENTS / ANSWERS TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS – WHICH IN ITSELF ( ie answers ) ARE THE INFORMATION SOUGHT BY ME. HERE WITH I AM SEEKING NOT THE OPINIONS ABOUT SOME HYPOTHETICAL ISSUES , BUT YOUR OFFICIAL STAND , LEGAL STAND ON ISSUES WHICH ARE OF FREQUENT OCCURRENCE WHICH ARE VIOLATING PEOPLE’S FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS & HUMAN RIGHTS. WE DO HAVE HIGHEST RESPECTS FOR JUDICIARY & ALL PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS , THIS IS AN APPEAL FOR TRUTH , INFORMATION SO THAT TO APPREHEND CORRUPT FEW IN PUBLIC SERVICE, WHO ARE AIDING & ABETTING TERRORISM , UNDERWORLD & CRIMINALS.

M/s Karnataka Telecables Ltd , Mysore renamed as M/s RPG Telecom Ltd again renamed as M/s RPG Cables Ltd once again renamed as M/s KEC International , Mysore used to manufacture PIJF & OFC telecables and supplied it to department of telecommunications , government of india , Indian Railways and GAIL , PGCIL of Ministry of Petroleum . DOT used to pay hundreds of crores of rupees from public exchequer to buy these cables . There is also one more company by name M/s Concepta Cables Ltd , Mysore belonging to the same industrial group supplying PIJF & OFC telecables to DOT. As a public , as a citizen of india and as a tax payer I want to know whether those crores of rupees from public exchequer are well spent.

1. How many times the above said companies were blacklisted by DOT , Supreme Court of India and other quasi judicial bodies , casewise ?

2. What action taken by DOT & judicial bodies against the above companies , casewise ?

3. How many cable kms of cable supplied by above companies , were rejected by DOT from the field yearwise , since 1986 ?

4. Did the above companies replace all the cables rejected by DOT & make good all the losses , yearwise ?

5. If not , why ?

6. What action taken by DOT , casewise ?

7. How many cable kms of cables supplied by above companies were accepted on deviation by DOT yearwise ? on what basis ?

8. Has the DOT authorised usage of recycled materials in the manufacture of cables ?

9. If yes , on what basis ?

10. Did DOT authorize outsourcing of cable manufacturing process by above companies to third parties , casewise ?

11. How many cable kms of telecom cables supplied by above companies have failed during usage within the warranty period , yearwise ?

12. Did the above companies honour warranty contract in all such cases ?

13. If not why , casewise ?

14. What action by DOT , casewise ?

15. Who maintains records of DOT / BSNL tenders given out to Suppliers specifically with respect to tenders given to M/s Karnataka Telecables Ltd , M/s RPG Telecom Ltd , M/s RPG Cables Ltd , M/s Concepta Cables Ltd & M/s KEC International Ltd ?

16. How may rejections / adverse reports , deviations found in the supplies made by above companies by DOT / BSNL Quality Circle ?

17. What action taken against BSNL / DOT officials who are trying to cover-up the scam inspite of my repeated appeals & RTI requests ?

YEAR TO WHICH ABOVE PERTAINS : MAJORITY OF DOCUMENTS PERTAINS TO YEAR 1995-2015 .

PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER WHO FAILED TO GIVE INFORMATION :

CPIO , BSNL HQ , New Delhi.

FEES PAID : IPO 16G 733463 for rupees TWENTY only

DATE : 28.03.2015 ……………..………………………NAGARAJA.M.R.

PLACE : MYSORE , INDIA….. ……………………….( APPLICANT)

EX-MINISTER SUKHRAM CONVICTED IN 1996 TELECOM SCAM

Former Telecom Minister Sukhram in PV Narasimha Rao’s cabinet has been convicted for awarding a lucrative contract to a private telecom firm for supplying cables to the government at inflated rates after receiving a bribe of Rs3 lakh 15 years back.

Special Judge RP Pandey, who convicted 84-year-old Sukhram also on charges of misusing his official position in awarding the contract and causing loss to the state exchequer, is likely to decide on quantum of sentence to him tomorrow.

The corruption case dates back to 1996, when the Telecom Ministry under Sukhram’s stewardship had awarded private firm Haryana Telecom Limited (HTL) a contract worth Rs 30 crore to supply 3.5 Lakh Conductor Kilometers (LCKM) of Polythene Insulated Jelly Filled (PIJF) cables to the telecom department.

Sukhram had been put on trial along with HTL chairman Devinder Singh Choudhary who had died during the trial.

“Sukhram also obtained (illegal) gratification other than legal remunerations from Choudhary as a motive or reward for showing the favour to the said firm (HTL),” the judge said.

The court convicted Sukhram, brushing aside his defence counsel argument that had he caused a huge pecuniary gain to HTL, he would not have taken a paltry sum of Rs3 Lakh. The court termed the argument as “devoid of merit.”

“It is not the prosecution case that Sukhram got only this much amount in this deal which runs into crores of rupees. The prosecution case is that the amount of Rs3 lakh which was recovered from him was the bribe money.

“It is a matter of common knowledge that it is virtually impossible to get any direct evidence where both i.e bribe giver and the person who takes the bribe, worked in joint concert,” ASJ Pandey said in his 188-page order.

Convicting Sukhram, the judge said though there was no direct evidence to prove the existence of conspiracy between Sukhram and Choudhary, “it is a well-known fact that conspiracy is hatched in privacy and secrecy, for which direct evidence would be rarely available.”

“The facts and circumstances show that because of proximity of co-accused D S Choudhary (since expired) with Sukh Ram, M/s HTL was his most favoured vendor,” it said.

The court also refused to accept the argument of defence counsel that after the death of co-accused Choudhary, Sukhram cannot be convicted for conspiracy.

“His (Sukhram counsel’s) submission is without basis. It is suffice to say that death of an accused only abates the case against him which was pending but it does not mitigate the offence alleged to have been committed by him in concert with his co-accused,” the judge said.

The court noted that CBI had conducted search at the Himachal Pradesh residence of Sukhram from where it had recovered over Rs 1.16 crore.

The court said the note prepared by an official of the department on October 8, 1995 had mentioned the “precarious” position of HTL and another firm and it was proposed not to award it the contract to supply cables in excess of its ability.

But, despite that Sukhram had passed an order to give the contract to HTL for supplying additional cables, it added.

Reliance Jio Finalises Vendors, Partners for 4G Services Launch

‘Undue favour shown to Reliance Jio’

But the Mukesh Ambani-led company says that no rules were bent.

The Comptroller and Auditor General of India on Friday said Reliance Jio Infocomm got undue advantage of Rs. 3,367.29 crore after the Department of Telecom allowed it to provide voice calling services using BWA spectrum under the new licensing regime.

Infotel Broadband, which had won pan-India spectrum in the 2010 BWA spectrum auctions, was later acquired by the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries. While Infotel had outbid most of the telecom operators, being an internet service provider (ISP) its licensing conditions did not allow it to offer voice services on this spectrum.

In 2013, the Department of Telecom allowed migration of ISP licensees with BWA spectrum to unified licence that would enable them to provide voice services using BWA spectrum. In its report, the CAG said Reliance Jio was the first to “take benefit of this scheme.”

“Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (formerly, M/s Infotel)… paid Unified License entry fee of Rs. 15 crore and additional migration fee of Rs. 1,658 crore in August 2013. This migration, allowed at prices discovered in 2001, resulted in undue advantage of Rs. 3,367.29 crore to M/s Reliance Jio Infocomm,” the CAG said in its report.

As per CAG calculations, the value of licence as on August 2013, would have been at least Rs. 5,025.29 crore.

“The decision to grant permission to an ISP licensee with BWA spectrum to operate in the voice telephony space also helped the ISP to circumvent the restrictions imposed by their licence at the time of auction, which were known to the ISP at the time of bidding for the BWA spectrum,” the auditor stated.

This was mainly because there was a lack of due diligence of in auction of spectrum.

Reliance Jio, however, denied the charges, saying, “we have acquired all our spectrum at market prices through open and transparent bidding processes, the conditions for which were same for all bidders. Further, the DoT rules for procuring the relevant licence for services using BWA spectrum too were the same for all successful bidders.”

Another spectrum scam hits govt, this time from ISRO

Pradeep Thakur | TNN | Feb 8, 2011, 12.10 AM IST

DELHI: Another spectrum scam has hit the UPA government which is already reeling from the fallout of allegations of corruption in the underpricing of 2G airwaves sold to telecom operators. On Monday, the government scrambled to cancel what appeared to be an improper deal where a private company would have got 70MHz of spectrum for just Rs 1,000 crore.

The scam involves the Bangalore-based Indian Space Research Organization and has a direct bearing on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who holds charge of the department of space. Both BJP and Left parties were quick to demand an investigation, stressing Singh’s cabinet responsibility.

The beneficiary, Devas Multimedia, is in a joint venture with ISRO-affiliate Antrix to offer satellite broadband services on various platforms, including mobile telephony.

The government last year earned Rs 67,719 crore just by auctioning 15MHz of similar airwaves for 3G mobile services. It got another Rs 38,000 crore by auctioning spectrum for broadband wireless access services which some operators propose to use to launch 4G services.

The Isro spectrum can be used for providing mobile broadband services using 4G technologies such as WiMax and Long-Term Evolution.

If sold at the same price the government got for 15 MHz of 3G spectrum, the sale of ISRO spectrum could have significantly lowered the fiscal deficit estimated at Rs 3.8 lakh crore this year.

With the deal under attack, ISRO indicated it could be revoked shortly. In a statement, the department of space said, “The agreement entered into by Antrix with Devas is already under review by the department of space and the government will take whatever steps are necessary to safeguard public interest. A decision on the matter is likely to be taken soon.”

The agreement between Devas Multimedia, promoted by M G Chandrasekhar, a former secretary at department of space and ISRO’s Antrix was signed in January 2005. The private entity since offloaded 17% of its stake to Deutsche Telekom for $75 million and took on other investors. This is the same as private players buying 2G spectrum cheap and selling it for large profits.

The 70 MHz spectrum gives Devas multimedia an edge over competitors, a feature that was once used by Doordarshan to deliver programmes in remote areas through satellite. This is of bigger value to the other spectrum holders in telecom, considering its high speed and mobile communication features.

Devas Multimedia said it had not received any communication regarding the contract, from ISRO or Antrix or any other government agency. “We do not own any spectrum, and the services we provide will be based on satellite transponders leased from ISRO/Antrix, wherein both — the satellite and spectrum — belong to the space research organization,” said a company statement. It claimed the GSAT 6 satellite programme had approval from the Union cabinet and Space Commission for its services, and Devas was developing an innovative satellite system.

CAG issued a statement confirming it was probing the matter, but denied it had finalized an estimate of the loss to government.

Government sources said the process to scrap the deal was underway, having been initiated two months ago. Sources said ISRO chief K Radhakrishnan had written to the PMO demanding cancellation of the agreement on the ground that it favoured Devas Multimedia.
The controversial deal was signed under his predecessor, G Madhavan Nair. But this may not cushion the government against criticism for allowing the deal to go through in the first place.
No urgency was, however, shown to revoke the deal even after the law ministry raised serious concerns about the proposal, terming it “illegal”.
In a statement, CAG said, “Audit of certain activities of department of space is underway. Preliminary inquiries have been raised, which is yet to be replied by the department.”
A newspaper report that said the national auditor had raised objections to free allocation of scarce airwaves had the Opposition sharpening its attack on the government on corruption. Both BJP and Left demanded a probe, stressing the PM was directly responsible for functioning of the space department.

“Since the department of space is under the Prime Minister, he should immediately clarify his stand on the whole issue,” BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said.

CAG urges DOT to cancel Pan India 4G spectrum held by Reliance Jio

Reliance Jio Finalises Vendors, Partners for 4G Services Launch

Comptroller & Auditor General of India in a draft report sent to the Department of Telecom for comments, said, “the DoT failed to recognise the tell-tale sign of rigging of the auction right from beginning of the auction” in which a small ISP, Infotel Broadband Services Pvt Ltd (IBSPL) emerged winner of pan-India broadband spectrum by paying 5,000 times of its net worth.

RIL, which acquired IBSPL within hours of it winning the spectrum and later renamed it Reliance Jio, said, “There is no final CAG report that we are aware of. That said we out rightly reject any suggestion whereby spectrum was acquired in any manner other than through a transparent bidding process duly supervised by Government of India.”

CAG report on Reliance Jio:

CAG says IBSPL, ranked 150th in the list of ISPs, submitted an earnest money deposit of Rs 252.50 crore through the covert and overt assistance of third party / private bank, bid for Rs 12,847.77 crore (5000 times of its net worth) for pan-India spectrum and then sold the company on the day of completion of the auction. This indicated IBSPL’s collusion and sharing of the confidential information with a third party in violation of auction conditions, said CAG.

RIL spokesperson said that as per NIA bidders were required to submit Bank Guarantee for desired amount as Earnest Money Deposit (EMD) along with its application. “EMD was based on specific deposit requirement for each telecom circle. Accordingly Infotel Broadband Services Pvt Ltd (IBSPL) submitted a Bank Guarantee of Rs 253 crore in format as prescribed in NIA. Since no money was deposited as EMD, the question of source of deposit does not arise,” RIL spokesperson said reports Outlook India .

According to CAG, due to inclusion of inadequate eligibility criterion for participation in the auction, the promoters of the IBSPL enriched themselves and made unfair gain.

CAG rejected DoT response that the eligibility criterion for participation in the auction was finalized after due diligence and on sector regulator TRAI’s recommendations saying it was department’s responsibility to ensure that only serious ISPs participated in the auction.

DoT in its response admitted that there was no eligibility criterion with respect to minimum net worth or paid up capital for participation in the auction.
The inter-ministerial committee did not satisfy itself as to how the IBSPL, a company with a net worth of Rs 2.5 crore, would be able to pay the bid amount of Rs 12,847.77 crore within ten days.

Reliance Jio’s response to CAG’s allegations:

Business line sent a questionnaire to Reliance Jio asking its views on the allegations made by CAG on its backdoor entry into voice services and rigging the BWA auctions in 2010. The response given by Rjio to CAG’s allegations has been presented in a tabulated form below.

2G spectrum scam

The 2G spectrum scam was an indian telecommunications scam and political scandal in which politicians and government officials under the Indian National Congress (Congress) coalition government undercharged mobile telephone companies for frequency allocation licenses, which they then used to create 2Gspectrum subscriptions for cell phones. The difference between the money collected and that mandated to be collected was estimated by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India at ₹1.76 trillion (US$26 billion), based on 2010 3G and BWA spectrum-auction prices.[1] In a chargesheet filed on 2 April 2011 by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI, the investigating agency), the loss was pegged at ₹309845.5 million(US$4.6 billion).[2] In a 19 August 2011 reply to the CBI, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said that the government had gained over ₹30 billion (US$440 million) by selling 2G spectrum.[2]Minister of Communications & ITKapil Sibal said in a 2011 press conference that “zero loss” was incurred by distributing 2G licenses on a first-come-first-served basis.[3]

On 2 February 2012, the Supreme Court of India ruled on a public interest litigation (PIL) related to the 2G spectrum scam. The court declared the allotment of spectrum “unconstitutional and arbitrary”, cancelling the 122 licenses issued in 2008 under A. Raja (Minister of Communications & IT from 2007 to 2009), the primary official accused.[4] According to the court, Raja “wanted to favour some companies at the cost of the public exchequer” and “virtually gifted away important national asset[s].”[5] The zero-loss theory was discredited[6] on 3 August 2012 when, after a Supreme Court directive, the government of India revised the base price for 5-MHz 2G spectrum auctions to ₹140 billion (US$2.1 billion), raising its value to about ₹28 billion(US$410 million) per MHz (near the Comptroller and Auditor General estimate of ₹33.5 billion (US$490 million) per MHz).[7][8]

Although the policy for awarding licences was first-come, first-served, Raja changed the rules so it applied to compliance with conditions instead of the application itself.[9] On 10 January 2008, companies were given only a few hours to supply Letters of Intent and payments; some executives were allegedly tipped off by Raja, and they (and the minister) were imprisoned.[9] In 2011 Time ranked the scam second on their “Top 10 Abuses of Power” list, behind the Watergate scandal.[10][11][12]

Background[edit]

India is divided into 22 telecommunications zones, with 281 zonal licenses.[13] In 2008, 122 new second-generation 2G Unified Access Service (UAS) licenses were granted to telecom companies on a first-come, first-served basis at the 2001 price. According to the CBI charge sheet, several laws were violated and bribes paid to favour certain firms in granting 2G spectrum licenses. According to a CAG audit, licenses were granted to ineligible corporations, those with no experience in the telecom sector (such as Unitech and Swan Telecom)[14] and those who had concealed relevant information.[15] Although former Prime MinisterManmohan Singh advised Raja to allot 2G spectrum transparently and revise the license fee in a November 2007 letter, Raja rejected many of Singh’s recommendations.[16] In another letter that month, the Ministry of Finance expressed procedural concerns to the DOT;[16] these were ignored, and the cut-off date was moved forward from 1 October 2007 to 25 September.[16] On 25 September, the DOT announced on its website that applicants filing between 3:30 and 4:30 pm that day would be granted licenses.[16] Although the corporation was ineligible, Swan Telecom was granted a license[14] for ₹15.37 billion (US$230 million) and sold a 45-percent share to the UAE-based Etisalat for ₹42 billion (US$620 million).[14] Unitech Wireless (a subsidiary of the Unitech Group) obtained a license for ₹16.61 billion (US$240 million), selling a 60-percent share for₹62 billion (US$910 million) to Norway-based Telenor.[14]

This is a list of companies who received 2G licenses during Raja’s term as telecom minister;[17][18] the licenses were later cancelled by the Supreme Court:[19][20]

Company

Telecom regions

# of licenses

Remarks

Adonis Projects Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh (East) 6 Adonis Projects, Nahan Properties, Aska Projects, Volga Properties, Azare Properties & Hudson Properties were acquired by Unitech. Since Unitech Infrastructure and Unitech Builders & Estates were subsidiaries of Unitech Group, in 2008 Unitech had 22 2G licenses. Later that year, Telenor bought a majority share in the telecom company from the Unitech Group and now provides service as Uninor with 22 licences.
Nahan Properties Assam, Bihar, North East, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh (east), West Bengal 6
Aska Projects Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka 3
Volga Properties Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra 3
Azure Properties Kolkata 1
Hudson Properties Delhi 1
Unitech Builders & Estates Tamil Nadu (including Chennai) 1
Unitech Infrastructures Mumbai 1

Loop Telecom

Bihar, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Kolkata, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha(Orissa), Tamil Nadu (including Chennai), Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh 21
Datacom Solutions Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Kolkata, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu (including Chennai), Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Delhi, Mumbai 21 Operates as Videocon Telecom
Shyam Telelink Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Kolkata, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu (including Chennai), Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, North East 17 Shyam Telelink & Shyani Telelink have a combined 21 licenses. In late 2008 Russia-basedSistema bought a majority share in the company, which now operates as MTS India.
Shyani Telelink Mumbai, Bihar, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh 4
Swan Telecom Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu (including Chennai), Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Mumbai 13 Swan was a subsidiary of Reliance Telecom established to circumvent the one-company-one-license rule. In 2008, Swan merged with Allianz Infratech; late in the year Abu Dhabi’s Etisalat bought about 45 percent of the company, renaming it Etisalat DB Telecom.
Allianz Infratech Bihar, Madhya Pradesh 2
Idea Cellular Assam, Punjab, Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir, North East, Kolkata, West Bengal, Odisha(Orissa), Tamil Nadu (including Chennai) 9 Since Idea Cellular bought Spice Communications in 2008 for ₹27 billion (US$400 million),[21]of the 122 spectrum licenses sold in 2008 Idea owns 13. Seven are in use by the company, and the remainder are overlapping licenses.[22]
Spice Communications Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra 4
S Tel Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha(Orissa), North East, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh 6 In January 2009, Bahrain Telecommunications agreed to buy 49 percent of S Tel for $225 million. Chinnakannan Sivasankaran owns the remaining share.[23][24] In May 2009,Sahara Group bought an 11.7-percent share in S Tel.[25]
Tata Teleservices Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, North East 3 In late 2008 Tata sold a 26-percent share to the Japanese NTT DoCoMo for about₹130.7 billion (US$1.9 billion), or an enterprise value of ₹502.69 billion (US$7.4 billion).[26]
Accused parties[edit]

The selling of the licenses drew attention to three groups: politicians and bureaucrats, who had the authority to sell licenses; corporations buying the licenses, and professionals who mediated between the politicians and corporations.

Politicians[edit]

The following charges were filed by the CBI and the Directorate General of Income Tax Investigation in the Special CBI Court.[27][28][29][30]

A. Raja[edit]

· Political career: Four-time DMK member of Parliament (present constituency Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu), former Union Minister of State for Rural Development (1999) and Health and Family Welfare (2003), former Union Cabinet Minister for Environment and Forests (2004) and Communication and Information Technology (2007 and 2009)[31][32][33][34]

· Allegation: A joint investigative report by the CBI and the Income Tax Department alleged that Raja may have received a ₹30 billion (US$440 million) bribe for moving the cut-off date for spectrum applications forward.[35][36] The changed deadline eliminated many applications, enabling Raja to favour a few applicants.[35][36] The agencies also alleged that he used accounts in his wife’s name in Mauritius and Seychelles banks for the kickbacks.[37] A CBI charge sheet alleged that Raja conspired with the accused and arbitrarily refined the first-come, first-served policy to ensure that Swan and Unitech received licences.[38] Instead of auctioning 2G spectrum, he sold it at the 2001 rate.[38]

· Charges: Criminal breach of trust by a public servant (section 409), criminal conspiracy (Section 120-B), cheating (Section 420) and forgery (Sections 468 and 471); booked under thePrevention of Corruption Act for accepting illegal gratification.[27][39][40]

· Status: Arrested by the CBI on 2 February 2011.[41] Applied for bail on 9 May 2012,[42][43] which was granted on 15 May.[44][45][46] As of August 2012, his trial was underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

M. K. Kanimozhi[edit]

· Political career: Daughter of five-time Chief Minister of Tamil NaduM. Karunanidhi. DMK member of Parliament, representing Tamil Nadu in the Rajya Sabha.[48][49]

· Allegations: According to the CBI charge sheet, Kanimozhi owns 20 percent of family-owned Kalaignar TV; her stepmother, Dayalu Ammal, owns 60 percent of the channel.[50] The CBI alleges that Kanimozhi was the “active brain” behind the channel[50] and conspired with Raja to coerce DB Realty cofounder Shahid Balwa to funnel ₹2 billion (US$29 million) to Kalaignar TV.[51] Kanimozhi was in regular contact with Raja about the launch of Kalaignar TV.[51] Raja advanced the channel’s cause, facilitating its registration with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and adding it to DTH operator TATA Sky‘s lineup. Kanimozhi was charged with tax evasion by the Income Tax Department in Chennai.[51]

· Charges: Criminal conspiracy to cause criminal breach of trust by a public servant and criminal conspiracy (Section 120-B), cheating (Section 420) and forgery (Sections 468 and 471), and booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act.[27][39]

· Status: Arrested by the CBI on 20 May 2011.[52][53] Granted bail on 28 November 2011, after 188 days in custody.[54][55] As of August 2012, her trial was underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

Bureaucrats[edit]

A number of bureaucrats were named in the CBI charge sheet filed in its Special Court.[27][28][29][30]

Siddharth Behura[edit]

· Position: Telecom Secretary when the licenses were granted.[27][56]

· Allegations: According to the CBI charge sheet, Behura conspired with Raja and several others. When the application deadline time was declared, from 3:30 to 4:30 pm Behura closed counters to block other telecom companies.[14]

· Charges: Criminal breach of trust by a public servant (Section 409), criminal conspiracy (Section 120-B), cheating (Section 420) and forgery (Sections 468 and 471); booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act for accepting illegal gratuities.[27][57]

· Status: Arrested by the CBI on 2 February 2011[41] and granted bail on 9 May 2012,[58][59] as of August 2012 his trial was underway in Special CBI Court.[47] In a 10 July 2012 joint parliamentary committee deposition, Behura blamed Raja for most of the decisions related to 2G spectrum auctions.[60]

RK Chandolia[edit]

· Position: Raja’s private secretary when the licenses were granted.[27][61]

· Allegations: According to the CBI charge sheet Chandolia, like Behura, conspired with Raja and several others; when the application deadline time was declared from 3:30 to 4:30 pm, Chandolia joined Behura in shutting counters to physically block other telecom companies.[14]

· Charges: Criminal conspiracy to cause criminal breach of trust by a public servant, criminal conspiracy (Section 120 B), cheating (Section 420) and forgery (Sections 468 and 471); booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act[27]

· Status: Arrested by the CBI on 2 February 2011.[41] Although he was granted bail by the special CBI court on 1 December 2011, the following day the High Court took suo motu notice of newspaper reports of the bail and stayed it.[62] Chandolia appealed to the Supreme Court, and on 9 May 2012 the court upheld the bail grant.[63] As of August 2012, his trial was underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

Executives[edit]

A number of executives were accused in the CBI charge sheet.[27][28][29][30]

Sanjay Chandra[edit]

· Position: Former Unitech Wireless managing director[27]

· Charges: Criminal conspiracy to cause criminal breach of trust by a public servant, criminal conspiracy (Section 120-B), cheating (Section 420) and forgery (Sections 468 and 471); booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act[27]

· Allegations: Former CBI prosecutor AK Singh was implicated in a taped conversation sharing legal strategy and privileged information with Chandra.[64][65]

· Status: Arrested by the CBI on 20 April 2011[66][67] and granted bail on 24 November,[68] as of August 2012 his trial was underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

Gautam Doshi[edit]

· Position: Managing director, Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group[27]

· Status: Arrested by the CBI on 20 April 2011[66] and granted bail on 24 November,[68] as of August 2012 his trial was underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

Hari Nair[edit]

· Position: Senior vice-president, Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group[27]

· Status: Arrested by the CBI on 20 April 2011[66] and granted bail on 24 November,[68] as of August 2012 his trial was underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

Surendra Pipara[edit]

· Position: Senior vice-president, Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group[27]

· Status: Arrested by the CBI on 20 April 2011[66] and granted bail on 24 November,[68] as of August 2012 his trial was underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

Vinod Goenka[edit]

· Position: Managing director, DB Realty and Swan Telecom[27]

· Charges: Criminal conspiracy to cause criminal breach of trust by a public servant, criminal conspiracy (Section 120 B), cheating (Section 420), forgery (Sections 468 and 471) and fabrication of evidence (Section 193); booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act[27]

· Status: Arrested by the CBI on 20 April 2011[66] and granted bail on 24 November,[68] as of August 2012 his trial was underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

Shahid Balwa[edit]

· Position: Corporate promoter, DB Realty and Swan Telecom[27]

· Charges: Criminal conspiracy to cause criminal breach of trust by a public servant, criminal conspiracy (Section 120-B), cheating (Section 420), forgery (Sections 468 and 471) and fabrication of evidence (Section 193); booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act[27]

· Status: Arrested by the CBI on 8 February 2011[69] and granted bail on 29 November,[70] as of August 2012 his trial was underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

Asif Balwa[edit]

· Position: Director, Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables[27]

· Status: Arrested by the CBI on 29 March 2011[71] and granted bail on 28 November,[72] as of August 2012 his trial was underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

Rajiv Agarwal[edit]

· Position: Director, Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables[27]

· Status: Arrested by the CBI on 29 March 2011[71] and granted bail on 28 November,[72] as of August 2012 his trial was underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

Sharath Kumar[edit]

· Position: Managing director, Kalaignar TV[27]

· Status: Arrested by the CBI on 20 May 2011[73] and granted bail on 28 November 2011,[74] as of August 2012 his trial was underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

Ravi Ruia[edit]

· Position: Vice-chair, Essar Group[75][76]

· Charges: Criminal conspiracy (Section 120 B) and cheating (Section 420)[75][76]

· Status: At large;[77] as of August 2012, his trial was underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

Anshuman Ruia[edit]

· Position: Director, Essar Group[75][76]

· Charges: Criminal conspiracy (Section 120 B) and cheating (Section 420).[75][76]

· Status: At large;[77] as of August 2012, his trial was underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

Vikas Saraf[edit]

· Position: Director of strategy and planning, Essar Group[75][76]

· Charges: Criminal conspiracy (Section 120 B) and cheating (Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code)[75][76]

· Status: At large;[77] as of August 2012, his trial was underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

IP Khaitan[edit]

· Position: Corporate promoter, Loop Telecom[75][76]

· Charges: Criminal conspiracy under (Section 120 B) and cheating (Section 420)[75][76]

· Status: At large;[77] as of August 2012, his trial was underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

Kiran Khaitan[edit]

· Position: Corporate promoter, Loop Telecom[75][76]

· Charges: Criminal conspiracy (Section 120 B) and cheating (Section 420)[75][76]

· Status: At large;[77] as of August 2012, his trial was underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

Karim Morani[edit]

· Position: Corporate promoter and director, Cineyug Films[27]

· Allegations: According to the Income Tax Department charge sheet, Morani-owned Cineyug Films was a part of the route used by Shahid Balwa to funnel[78] ₹2 billion (US$29 million) illegally to Kalaignar TV.[78] DB Realty corporate promoters Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka transferred ₹2092.5 million (US$31 million) to Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables, where Balwa’s younger brother Asif was a director.[78][79] Kusegaon then transferred ₹2 billion (US$29 million) to Cineyug Films, and Morani transferred it to Kalaignar TV.[78]

· Status: Arrested by the CBI on 30 May 2011[80] and granted bail on 28 November,[74] as of August 2012 his trial was underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

Corporations[edit]

Several companies were named in the CBI charge sheet.[27][28][29][30]

Unitech Wireless[edit]

· Charges: Criminal conspiracy to cause criminal breach of trust by a public servant, criminal conspiracy (Section 120-B), cheating (Section 420) and forgery (Sections 468 and 471) [27]

· Status: As of August 2012, trial underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

Reliance Telecom[edit]

· Charges: Criminal conspiracy to cause criminal breach of trust by a public servant, criminal conspiracy (Section 120-B) and cheating (Section 420)[27]

· Status: As of August 2012, trial was underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

Swan Telecom[edit]

· Charges: Criminal conspiracy to cause criminal breach of trust by a public servant, criminal conspiracy (Section 120-B) and cheating (Section 420)[27]

· Status: As of August 2012, trial underway in Special CBI Court.[47]

Other companies named in the charge sheet were:[81][82][83]

· Loop Telecom

· Loop Mobile India

· Essar Tele Holding

· Essar Group (corporate parent of Essar Tele Holding)

Media role[edit]

Main article: Radia tapes controversy

OPEN and Outlook reported that journalists Barkha Dutt (editor of NDTV) and Vir Sanghvi (editorial director of the Hindustan Times) knew that corporate lobbyist Nira Radia influenced Raja’s appointment as telecom minister,[84] publicising Radia’s phone conversations with Dutt and Sanghvi[85][86] when Radia’s phone was tapped by the Income Tax Department. According to critics, Dutt and Sanghvi knew about the link between the government and the media industry but delayed reporting the corruption.[84]

Licence cancellations[edit]

On 2 February 2012 the Supreme Court ruled on petitions filed by Subramanian Swamy and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) represented by Prashant Bhushan, challenging the 2008 allotment of 2G licenses,[207] cancelling all 122 spectrum licences granted during Raja’s term as communications minister.[207] and described the allocation of 2G spectrum as “unconstitutional and arbitrary”.[208] The bench of GS Singhvi and Asok Kumar Ganguly imposed a fine of ₹50 million (US$740,000) on Unitech Wireless, Swan Telecom and Tata Teleservices and a ₹5 million (US$74,000) fine on Loop Telecom, S Tel, Allianz Infratech and Sistema Shyam Tele Services.[4] According to the ruling the current licences would remain in place for four months, after which time the government would reissue the licences.[209]

In its ruling the court said that former telecom minister A. Raja “wanted to favour some companies at the cost of the public exchequer”, listing seven steps he took to ensure this:[4][210]

1. After becoming telecom minister, Raja directed that all applications for spectrum licences would be held pending Telecom Regulatory Authority of India recommendations.[4][210]

2. The 28 August 2007 TRAI recommendations were not presented to the full Telecom Commission, which would have included the finance secretary. Although the TRAI recommendations for allocation of 2G spectrum had serious financial implications (and finance ministry input was required under the Government of India Transaction of Business Rules, 1961), Telecom Commission non-permanent members were not notified of the meeting.[4][210]

3. The DoT officers attending the 10 October 2007 Telecom Commission meeting were coerced into approving the TRAI recommendations, or they would have “incurred” Raja’s “wrath”.[4][210]

4. Since the Cabinet had approved the Group of Ministers recommendations, the DoT had to discuss the issue of spectrum pricing with the finance ministry. However, Raja did not consult the finance minister or other officials because the finance secretary had objected to allocating 2G spectrum at 2001 rates.[4][210]

5. Raja dismissed the law minister’s suggestion that the issue should be presented to the Group of Ministers. After receiving the PM’s 2 November 2007 letter suggesting transparency in spectrum allocation of the spectrum, Raja said it would be unfair, discriminatory, arbitrary and capricious to auction spectrum to new applicants because it would not give them a level playing field. Although a 24 September DoT press release said that 1 October would be the application deadline, he changed the deadline to 25 September. Raja’s arbitrary action, “though appear[ing] to be innocuous was actually intended to benefit some of the real estate firms who did not have any experience in dealing with telecom services and who had made applications only on 24 September 2007, i.e. one day before the cut-off date fixed by the C&IT minister on his own”.[4][210]

6. The 25 September cut-off date decided by Raja on 2 November was not made public until a 10 January 2008 press release in which he changed the first-come, first-served principle which had been in operation since 2003. “This enabled some of the applicants, who had access either to the minister or DoT officers, get bank drafts prepared towards performance guarantee of about Rs 16 billion”.[4][210]

7. “The manner in which the exercise for grant of LoIs to the applicants was conducted on 10 January 2008 leaves no room for doubt that everything was stage managed to favour those who were able to know in advance change in the implementation of the first-come-first-served policy.” As a result, some companies who had submitted applications in 2004 or 2006 were pushed down the list in favour of those who had applied in August and September 2007.[4][210]

Companies affected by cancellations[edit]

The table below lists the companies whose license were cancelled.[211][212]

Company

Parent company

# of licences cancelled

Uninor Joint venture of Unitech Group of India and Telenor of Norway Unitech Group 22
Sistema Shyam TeleServices Limited, now MTS India Joint venture of the Shyam Group of India and Sistema of Russia 21
Loop Mobile (formerly BPL Mobile) Khaitan Holding Group 21
Videocon Telecom Videocon 21
Etisalat-DB Joint venture of Swan Telecom of India and Etisalat of the UAE 15
Idea Cellular Aditya Birla Group (49.05%), Axiata (Malaysia, 15%) & Providence Equity Partners (U.S., 10.6%) 13
S Tel Joint venture of C Sivasankaran of India and Batelco of Bahrain. After the Supreme Court ruling, Batelco sold its 42.7% share to Sivasankaran-owned Sky City Foundation for 65.8 million Bahraini dinar ($174.5 million).[213][214][215] 6
Tata Teleservices Tata Group 3
Aftermath[edit]