Bhubaneswar: Noted RTI Activist Bhupendra Singh on Thursday demanded an investigation into former MP Baijayant Panda’s Bahamas links.
Addressing a press meet this afternoon, Singh said, “I and my team started investigating companies located in Bahamas and after about a year and half, we found that three shell companies based out Bahamas existing only on paper namely Finlay Corporation, Pikika Limited and Messina Corporation. These are the companies that are closely associated with industrialist and politician from Odisha, Baijayant Panda and his wife Jagi Mangat Panda.”
“These three companies located in Bahamas are operated only on paper. There is no known owner of these companies in Bahamas. The address of these three companies is the same. Thousands of other shell companies are using this address. In Bahamas for running these three companies, there is an agent called Corporate Services Limited, whose job is to launder black money of its clients by creating shell companies,” he added.
The RTI activists further alleged saying “Manjula Devi Shroff, a very close business parterre of Baijayant Panda and Jagi Mangat Panda and the director of OTV, was the Power of Attorney holder of Finlay Corporation based in Bahamas and through her millions of rupees came from abroad.”
The three shell companies in Bahamas invested directly and indirectly in Indian companies of Baijayant Panda and Jagi Mangat Panda namely Ortel Communication, Metro Skynet, OTV and MS Telecom and gave loans for crores of rupees in lieu of shares and then sold back these shares at a minuscule price, way below the market and face value thus actually in a way gifting them to these companies benefiting the owners i.e. Baijayant Panda and his wife Jagi Mangat Panda.
Bhupendra further said that through sham transactions, these three companies located in Bahamas brought crores of rupees by subverting Indian laws and caused loss to the government and benefitted the panda couple. It prima facie appears as if these firms were opened in Bahamas to launder ill-gotten black money into white. Even Income Tax Officers also in 2003 had told the court about the same in conclusion to his own investigation. It appears reasonable that it is because of the great influence of Baijayant Panda and his political affiliation, no action has been taken against him till date, despite complaint having been lodged.
Questing about why no action has been taken yet, Singh said, “On January 24, 2019, I complained to PMO, CBI, ED, SIT Black money, MAG (Multi-agency group of Govt. of India). I submitted an eight-page detailed complaint and supported with 200 pages documentary evidence against Baijayant Panda, his wife Jagi Mangat Panda and his associate Manjula Devi. I want to ask Central Govt and the Central agencies, why no action has been taken on my complaint and why the Central Investigation Agencies are not willing to investigate against Baijayant Panda? Is there any pressure on them?”
Some national media had highlighted the matter earlier. However, Baijayant Panda had disproved the reports.
Ms Kalinga