Is Paradise Papers Going to Go the Birla Papers, Panama Papers, Sahara Papers Way?

What is the BJP govt. going to do about the latest leak in Paradise Papers of Indians owning offshore wealth? From the record of this govt. in reported dealing with revelations such as Birla payments, Sahara Payments and Panama Papers, there is not much hope. 

The huge leak of financial documents-dubbed as Paradise papers, revealing the financial affairs of some hundreds of ultra-rich individuals and companies are now under public eye. In this investigation done by a collaboration of 94 media organisations, it has been found that 714 Indians were said to be dealing with two firms- Bermuda’s Appleby and Singapore’s Asiaciti. India ranks 19th in terms of number of names among the 180 countries represented in the data.

As the tax havens or secret jurisdictions are known for facilitating legal tax avoidance and helping MNCs exploit tax laws in their countries, these Paradise Papers would ease the role of regulatory bodies- in India such as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in investigating the legitimacy of offshore transactions. So far Politicians- BJP Member of Parliament Ravindra Kishore Sinha, Minister of state- Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha, Congress leader Sachin Pilot, industrialist Vijay Mallya are a few names listed in them.

Here is a look back at what has actually happened to the earlier revelations of corruption after BJP took over power in 2014.

Eighteen months earlier, in April 2016, a leak of documents from the financial services law firm Mossack Fonseca – called Panama Papers - revealed details of offshore entities set up by over 500 Indian nationals around the world. Names of film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, corporate honchos like DLF chief K P Singh, Vinod Adani and politicians - Abhishek Singh, son of Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh were among the names listed in them. In the aftermath of the scandal, while Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsso and Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk resigned from their positions and recently a Pakistani anti-corruption court indicted ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in relation to this, the scenario in India is different. It has been reported that investigation has begun against 49 individuals in May 2017 by the Enforcement Directorate, although the names haven’t been revealed by ED.

In 2013, raids conducted by IT department and CBI on Aditya Birla Group have yielded documents on undeclared payments. One of the documents written by an officer of the company showed payment of Rs 25 crore to “Gujarat CM”. Further probe into these allegations remains in abeyance during the current BJP tenure while petitions contesting the role of IT officials who dealt with the investigation are pending in the courts.

Similarly, in November 2014, raids conducted by IT department on Sahara Group recovered Rs 137 crores in cash and several documents and spreadsheets allegedly having information on the payments made to prominent BJP and Congress leaders. One of the spreadsheets showing a detailed account of Rs 115 crore being received by the group in 2013-14 and Rs 113 crore distributed in the same period. The alleged payments were made to: Rs 40 crore of cash given to CM Gujarat, Rs 10 crore given to CM of Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Rs 1 crore to CM of Delhi who at that time was Sheila Dikshit. Despite Supreme Court earlier guidelines in such cases, with no action taken into them, senior lawyers have termed the issue was buried. 

So then, is this the way Paradise Papers also will be put to sleep?