In another huge leak, dubbed as Paradise Papers leak of financial documents, it was revealed how prominent and influential Indians had secretly invested vast amounts of cash in offshore tax havens. The Indian list included several corporate houses and two key BJP names-Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha and BJP Rajya Sabha MP and founder of Security and Intelligence Services (SIS) RK Sinha.
RK Sinha, when contacted by ANI news agency, refused to comment saying he was on a seven-day maun vrat. The video (below) has since then gone viral.
#WATCH: BJP MP Ravindra Kishore Sinha’s reaction on being asked about a news report of his security firm being linked to 2 offshore entities pic.twitter.com/AryNIJdq8h
— ANI (@ANI) November 6, 2017
The minister Sinha took to Twitter to claim his innocence while adding that his transactions were legal and bonafide.
He wrote, “Full details have been provided to Indian Express. These were bonafide and legal transactions undertaken on behalf of highly reputed world-leading organisations in my fiduciary role as Partner at Omidyar Network and its designated representative on the D.Light Board. All these transactions have been fully disclosed to relevant authorities through all necessary filings as required.
“After leaving Omidyar Network, I was asked to continue on the D.Light Board as an Independent Director. On joining the Union Council of Ministers, I immediately resigned from the D.Light Board and severed my involvement with the company It is crucial to note that these transactions were done for D.Light as an Omidyar representative, and not for any personal purpose.”
As with last year’s Panama Papers leak, the documents were obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which called in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) to oversee the investigation. The Guardian is also among the organisations investigating the documents.
Among the 180 countries represented in the data, India ranks 19th in terms of the number of names, reported The Indian Express. In all, there are 714 Indians in the tally. Interestingly, it’s an Indian company, Sun Group, founded by Nand Lal Khemka, that figures as Appleby’s second-largest client internationally, with as many as 118 different offshore entities.