The letter below is a ‘privileged communication’ sent to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh by CPI Member of Parliament Gurudas Dasgupta concerning the foreign bank account of Attorney General G. E. Vahanvati. Learning of the letter to the PM, the Attorney General has sent a legal notice to Gurudas Dasgupta, and, in response, the CPI MP has moved a privilege motion against the Attorney General in Parliament.
August 9, 2013
My dear Prime Minister,
As a senior Member of Parliament I have been provided with a piece of sensitive information. This is about corruption and malpractices in high places. In my commitment to fight corruption as I did always in the past, I have decided to pass it on to you to belief that truthfulness of my information will be appropriately done by competent state machinery. In the national interest I seek to perform this duty.
The complaint is against present Attorney General of India, Mr. G.E. Vahanvati, who is always duty bound to maintain high standard of morality and propriety.
According to the information provided to me Mr. Vahanvati opened an account with Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) in a particular branch in Singapore. This was never disclosed by him. This was done by Vahanvati in 1997, as and when he was Advocate General of Maharashtra. I am told that till 2007, huge of foreign currency was deposited frequently in his account. It might be in hundreds of crores.
Suddenly in 2007, huge amount of money was transferred to the account of his daughter Sholeen Carrimjee in the same branch of the same bank.
The details are as follows:
1. Beneficiary – G.E. Vahanvati
2. Code Name: E. Tajbhoy Vahanvati
3. Account Code: 569797 HL
4. Account handled by : U. Bucher (now retired)
5. Bank’s Name : Union Bank of Switzerland – Branch in Singapore.
6. Daughter Sholeen Carrimjee is a British Citizen.
7. Husband Tariq Carrimjee is also a British Citizen.
8. The Code Name used by the Attorney General is incidentally his grandfather’s name, which is a Secret Code to be used for each and every transaction.
I am shocked to learn this explosive and concrete information of huge black money deposit by Mr. Vahanvati was available with our agencies like CBI, Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax and FIU for the past two years. Our agencies were alerted by Financial Service Authority (FSA) of United Kingdom and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), way back in 2011 in connection with these agencies probe against the suspected money laundering activities of Vahanvati’s son-law Tariq Carrimjee, who is based in London, having British passport. He recently shifted his base to Dubai.
But unfortunately the Indian agencies were asked not to act on this specific information by the high and mighty in our political system.
Mr. Vahanvati’s son-in-law Tariq Carrimjee came into the radar of agencies in UK, after they suspected illegal trading activities and money laundering by him in London Stock Exchange in late 2009. The UK agencies found money trail to his accounts from his wife Sholeen Carrimjee’s account in UBS’s particular branch in Singapore. The inputs given by the counter parts in Singapore, the UK agencies found that Ms. Sholeen’s funds were originated from her father Vahanvati’s account maintained in the same branch.
As Vahanvati is an Indian citizen, both Singapore and UK agencies have alerted the huge volume of money to Indian authorities, following the principles of the International practices on curbing the money laundering and illegal activities. More shocking was according to the information passed from UK authorities, Mr. Tariq Carrimjee is holding an asset in the form of a house in 2G scam case accused Shahid Balwa’s real estate company DB Realty’s site in Prabhadevi site, Mumbai. Attorney General’s controversial legal opinions in protecting Mr.Shahid Balwa’s Swan Telecom genuinely provides doubt and this real estate deal should be taken for consideration for probe by CBI team investigating 2G Scam. It should be probed to check whether these is a quid-pro-quo angle.
Deriving benefit fully or party from the transfer of money they received, transferred from the account of Vahanvati, they started business. They set up three companies in UK – Somerset Asset Management LLP, Somerset Equities Limited and Atlas Minerals Limited.
Mr. Tariq’s name figured in the recent expose of 10000 persons having bank accounts in tax havens by International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). According to ICIJ, where the information is available in public domain for the past three years, Mr. Tariq is having accounts in Banks operating from British Virgin Islands and operating a financial service company called Fast Tycoon Limited. This is a common knowledge in India also. But the link could not be established that he was son-in-law of Mr. Vahanvati.
Here the big question is how come huge money of hundreds crores landed in the UBS’s branch in Singapore in the name of Mr. G.E. Vahanvati, the Attorney General of India. Why people were paying money to Vahanvati, which ultimately found in foreign account? Why people are obliging him? What was the consideration? We have to find – from which sources and for what purpose millions of dollars were deposited in this particular account from 1997. This can be a tip of the iceberg. And why Indian agencies were not acting on this shocking, concrete, point blank information received from their counter parts in UK and Singapore? Who blocks from them acting?
It is an irony that huge stache of black money was found in the foreign bank account in the name of G.E. Vahanvati, the Attorney General of India, who leads the case in Supreme Court for Government of India on retrieving the black money related cases.
I hereby request you to immediately order to our investigation agencies like CBI, Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax and Financial Intelligence Unit to get in touch with authorities of Union Bank of Switzerland and government and legal authorities in Singapore to get the details of the bank account in the name of Mr. G.E. Vahanvati, the Attorney General of India to find truth in the interest of justice.
Again I am reiterating that I am passing this information to you while performing my duty as a Member of Parliament to protect the national interest and to fight black money and money laundering. Kindly find out if my information is alright.
Yours sincerely
Gurudas Dasgupta
SOURCE | SOURCE
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