Kejriwal’s pre-Diwali dhamaka: Ambanis, Goyal, Congress MP stash black money in Swiss bank
10 Nov 2012 7:16 AM IST
In a fresh salvo on Friday, India Against Corruption (IAC) activist-turned-politician Arvind Kejriwal accused HSBC bank of indulging in money laundering and claimed the Ambani brothers, Naresh Goyal, Burmans (of Dabur) and Congress MP Anu Tandon had parked their black money in its Geneva branch.
Not sparing even the president of the country, Kejriwal said: ‘Mukesh Ambani is understood to have met the then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and requested him not to raid Reliance Industries and that he was willing to pay up taxes to buy peace. It is also understood that Shri Pranab Mukherjee was planning to bring a Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme (VDIS) to help these people. Later, he dropped the idea. Rather than to do it formally through a VDIS, Mr Mukherjee granted immunity from prosecution under Income Tax Act, according to some media reports. All these people were let off after paying income tax only,’ he added.
Addressing a press conference at the Press Club of India in New Delhi, Kejriwal and lawyer Prashant Bhushan alleged around Rs 6,000 crore blackmoney was lying in 700 accounts of the Geneva branch of the bank and people who had deposited ‘small amounts of money’ in the bank were raided but ‘big fish’ like Mukesh and Anil Ambani, Naresh Goyal (Jet Airways), Tandon and Burmans (Anand, Pradeep and Ratan) of Dabur were ‘let off’ at the behest of the government.
Kejriwal gave an account of the amount of money stashed away at the Geneva branch as of 2006 (see box).
The activist demanded that top HSBC officials should be immediately arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, operations of the bank should immediately be suspended in India, all those whose names figure in the list of 700 people, including Ambani brothers, Naresh Goyal, Burmans should be raided, their statements recorded and they should be arrested if found prima facie guilty of having sent their money abroad through hawala.
The activist alleged the UPA government under Manmohan Singh was ‘sold out’ and it is the ‘biggest danger’ as it is surrendering economic sovereignty of the country. He expressed fears that terrorists in Pakistan or criminals can exploit the method of money transfer in HSBC for their activities in India.
Kejriwal said though they do not have ‘official documents’ with regard to the businessmen holding accounts, they checked with several sources after receiving inputs from a Congress leader, who was inducted into the government in the recent cabinet reshuffle.
Kejriwal also provided statements of three persons, whose names appeared in the list and questioned by Income Tax officials, in which they have told interrogators that HSBC facilitated them to open accounts without going to Geneva.
‘The money was handed to an agent here and whenever they wanted to withdraw they used to contact a person in Geneva and the amount was delivered in India,’ Kejriwal alleged.
‘There is no physical transfer of money. This is money laundering. The statements by the three persons reveal that HSBC is openly and brazenly running a hawala racket in India. These statements are enough to arrest HSBC officials. Their operations should be immediately suspended as it is a fit case for charging them under sedition and waging war against India,’ Kejriwal said.
Alleging that only about 125 of the 700 persons named in the list were raided, Kejriwal sought to question the rationale behind the pick and choose policy of the government in excluding the ‘big fish’ from the raids. Bhushan said that the government is in contempt of the Supreme Court as it had not implemented an order of the apex court on black money.
Interestingly, most TV channels including CNBC TV 18 and TimesNow decided not to give much weightage to the Kejiriwal story. Instead, the channels ran the denials issued by Reliance and others.
Meanwhile, Anu Tandon called the allegations utterly baseless and motivated. Mukesh Ambani-headed Reliance Industries Ltd said neither RIL or Mukesh have or had any illegitimate accounts anywhere in the world. ‘The continued tirade of baseless allegations being made by IAC against us appears to be instigated by vested interests,’ an RIL statement said.
Jet Airways dismissed as entirely false the allegations of company chairman Naresh Goyal having unaccounted money stashed away in a Swiss bank. In a statement, the company said Goyal was a non-resident Indian since January 1991 and was accordingly entitled to have bank accounts outside India. ‘Goyal received a routine enquiry letter from the income tax department regarding a bank account at HSBC Geneva of M/s. Tailwinds Ltd, a company based in the Isle of Man,’ the statement said. However, the existence of that company (M/s. Tailwinds Ltd.) was fully disclosed to various departments of the Indian government and all IT department questions had been satisfactorily replied to, it said.
In a statement, HSBC said: ‘HSBC Bank in India notes certain allegations made today. The bank cannot comment on the specific details of the allegations that have been made, which relate to issues in the past. HSBC takes compliance with the law, wherever it operates, very seriously. With a new senior global leadership team and a new strategy in place since last year, HSBC continues to take concrete steps to strengthen compliance, risk management and culture,’ the bank added.
A statement issued by Dabur India said: ‘It was unfortunate that every person having a foreign bank account is being painted with the same brush. We wish to state that these accounts were opened by the Burman family members when they were NRIs, and were legally allowed to open such accounts.’
Not sparing even the president of the country, Kejriwal said: ‘Mukesh Ambani is understood to have met the then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and requested him not to raid Reliance Industries and that he was willing to pay up taxes to buy peace. It is also understood that Shri Pranab Mukherjee was planning to bring a Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme (VDIS) to help these people. Later, he dropped the idea. Rather than to do it formally through a VDIS, Mr Mukherjee granted immunity from prosecution under Income Tax Act, according to some media reports. All these people were let off after paying income tax only,’ he added.
Addressing a press conference at the Press Club of India in New Delhi, Kejriwal and lawyer Prashant Bhushan alleged around Rs 6,000 crore blackmoney was lying in 700 accounts of the Geneva branch of the bank and people who had deposited ‘small amounts of money’ in the bank were raided but ‘big fish’ like Mukesh and Anil Ambani, Naresh Goyal (Jet Airways), Tandon and Burmans (Anand, Pradeep and Ratan) of Dabur were ‘let off’ at the behest of the government.
Kejriwal gave an account of the amount of money stashed away at the Geneva branch as of 2006 (see box).
The activist demanded that top HSBC officials should be immediately arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, operations of the bank should immediately be suspended in India, all those whose names figure in the list of 700 people, including Ambani brothers, Naresh Goyal, Burmans should be raided, their statements recorded and they should be arrested if found prima facie guilty of having sent their money abroad through hawala.
The activist alleged the UPA government under Manmohan Singh was ‘sold out’ and it is the ‘biggest danger’ as it is surrendering economic sovereignty of the country. He expressed fears that terrorists in Pakistan or criminals can exploit the method of money transfer in HSBC for their activities in India.
Kejriwal said though they do not have ‘official documents’ with regard to the businessmen holding accounts, they checked with several sources after receiving inputs from a Congress leader, who was inducted into the government in the recent cabinet reshuffle.
Kejriwal also provided statements of three persons, whose names appeared in the list and questioned by Income Tax officials, in which they have told interrogators that HSBC facilitated them to open accounts without going to Geneva.
‘The money was handed to an agent here and whenever they wanted to withdraw they used to contact a person in Geneva and the amount was delivered in India,’ Kejriwal alleged.
‘There is no physical transfer of money. This is money laundering. The statements by the three persons reveal that HSBC is openly and brazenly running a hawala racket in India. These statements are enough to arrest HSBC officials. Their operations should be immediately suspended as it is a fit case for charging them under sedition and waging war against India,’ Kejriwal said.
Alleging that only about 125 of the 700 persons named in the list were raided, Kejriwal sought to question the rationale behind the pick and choose policy of the government in excluding the ‘big fish’ from the raids. Bhushan said that the government is in contempt of the Supreme Court as it had not implemented an order of the apex court on black money.
Interestingly, most TV channels including CNBC TV 18 and TimesNow decided not to give much weightage to the Kejiriwal story. Instead, the channels ran the denials issued by Reliance and others.
Meanwhile, Anu Tandon called the allegations utterly baseless and motivated. Mukesh Ambani-headed Reliance Industries Ltd said neither RIL or Mukesh have or had any illegitimate accounts anywhere in the world. ‘The continued tirade of baseless allegations being made by IAC against us appears to be instigated by vested interests,’ an RIL statement said.
Jet Airways dismissed as entirely false the allegations of company chairman Naresh Goyal having unaccounted money stashed away in a Swiss bank. In a statement, the company said Goyal was a non-resident Indian since January 1991 and was accordingly entitled to have bank accounts outside India. ‘Goyal received a routine enquiry letter from the income tax department regarding a bank account at HSBC Geneva of M/s. Tailwinds Ltd, a company based in the Isle of Man,’ the statement said. However, the existence of that company (M/s. Tailwinds Ltd.) was fully disclosed to various departments of the Indian government and all IT department questions had been satisfactorily replied to, it said.
In a statement, HSBC said: ‘HSBC Bank in India notes certain allegations made today. The bank cannot comment on the specific details of the allegations that have been made, which relate to issues in the past. HSBC takes compliance with the law, wherever it operates, very seriously. With a new senior global leadership team and a new strategy in place since last year, HSBC continues to take concrete steps to strengthen compliance, risk management and culture,’ the bank added.
A statement issued by Dabur India said: ‘It was unfortunate that every person having a foreign bank account is being painted with the same brush. We wish to state that these accounts were opened by the Burman family members when they were NRIs, and were legally allowed to open such accounts.’
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