JOIN USA Union Minister, a BJP MP, a megastar, a fugitive businessman and son of a senior Congress leader from Karnataka are among a host of Indians on a list publicised early Monday for being part of offshore dealings.
The leaked documents - Paradise Papers - running into 13.4 million corporate records - contained financial data from two companies in Bermuda (Appleby) and Singapore (Asiatici Trust) and names which included Union Minister Jayant Sinha, Rajya Sabha MP R K Sinha, Amitabh Bachchan, Vijay Mallya and Congress leader Veerappa Moily's son Harsha.
The names, including those of 714 Indians, surfaced after the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which got these documents from Munich-based newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, put them in public domain.
Details were published in media outlets like the Guardian and the Indian Express.
According to the ICIJ, Sinha was a director of a Californian solar power company D.Light Design when he signed a board resolution approving a $3 million loan from a Dutch fund to D.Light's Cayman subsidiary. Sinha said that he was on the board of D.Light Design until 2014 and signed financial documents as part of his duty.
The documents showed dealings of Mallya with Diageo Group in selling United Spirits Ltd. According to the papers, Diageo ended waiving a $1.5-billion debt owed by three USL subsidiaries. It also novated 4.4 million pounds Watson Ltd, a Mallya-owned company, owed to USL Ltd.
Mallya in focus
According to documents, Mallya pocketed around Rs 10,000 crore through the waivers while Diageo reported that USL got Rs 1,225 crore at the Bombay Stock Exchange.
The documents also claimed that offshore firms in Mauritius invested in a company floated by Harsha when his father Veerappa Moily was a Union Corporate Affairs Minister. It showed that a Unitus Group subsidiary invested in Moksha Yug Access.