AG Vahanvati, do come clean

With the Attorney General GE Vahanvati’s son-in-law Tariq Carrimjee, and his company Somerset Asset Management, having been banned by the Financial Service authority (FSA) of the United Kingdom, fingers have been raised at the highest law adviser in the country. Clearly, it is not advisable for the government to allow the AG to continue in office until he comes clean and explains the misdemeanour on the part of his relative, whose trading organization now faces a heavy penalty from the trusted UK watchdog, for the former’s role in recklessly assisting one Ramesh Kumar Goenka in October 2010 to manipulate Gazprom and Reliance Security stocks in 2010. While senior CPI leader and MP, Gurudas Dasgupta, has already filed a notice for privilege against the AG, alleging the country’s senior most law officer has been causing impediments in his parliamentary responsibilities, it is for the government to really sit up and take notice. 

  It would extremely imprudent to let Vahanvati to continue in his office, until he explains his situation, given his family relation with the now discredited Carrimjee, who has been accused of insider trading and manipulation of Reliance stocks in the latter’s favour. Moreover, Dasgupta’s legal notice also calls into attention the alleged illegal foreign bank account at Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS)’s Singapore branch since 1997 that the country’s topmost law officer holds, and the transactions that have happened through those. Evidently, the country’s highest legal practitioner cannot afford to have blemishes in his record, given the fact that s/he is privy to extremely sensitive information on not only the investigations underway but also other cases that are pending in our courts.