Scams and frauds bleed India in 2020

India’s infamous fallen billionaire, Anil Ambani, may have claimed that his ‘net worth is zero’ but Indian banks aren’t buying it.In the midst of Reliance Communications’ bankruptcy resolution process, three Indian banks — the State Bank of India (SBI), Union Bank of India (UBI) and the Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) — are classifying the company’s accounts and the accounts of its units as fraudulent.

Sources told the Economic Times that the three banks, which includes India’s largest lender, are looking to launch a deeper probe into the transactions from the account of three Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group entities — Reliance Communications, Reliance Infratel and Reliance Telecom.

However, the Delhi High Court has directed Union Bank of India and Indian Overseas Bank to maintain the status quo in a matter pertaining to the classification of accounts as fraudulent until the next hearing on January 13.

SBI and the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group declined to comment on the issue. The accusation of fraud puts Reliance Communications’ resolution plan at risk. According to the company’s official website, it owes Rs 49,193 crore in dues. In addition to that, Reliance Telecom owes Rs24,306.27 crore and Reliance Infratel owes Rs 12,687.65 crore.

Cumulatively, this adds up to Rs 86,188 crore — while still excluding the Rs 28,837 that’s owed in spectrum dues.

This is ten times more than what another fallen billionaire, Vijay Mallya, owed Indian banks, with debt amounting to Rs 9,000 crore. Compared to Nirav Modi, who owes at Rs 7,409.07 crore, Reliance Communications’ debt is even more than a ten-fold hike.

Bankruptcy resolution hangs in the balance

These allegations come nearly a year after a forensic audit unearthed questionable transactions worth Rs 5,500 crore in the three Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group entities.

At the time, the probe found three suspicious large entries buried between hundreds of thousands of other transactions between May 2017 and March 2018, which indicated fund diversion.

However, the reclassification of Reliance Communication and affiliated companies’ accounts comes at a time when the bankruptcy resolution was finally moving along. The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) gave its approval to the resolution plan on December 5 after at least 11 months of negotiations.

This opens up the path for Anil Ambani’s brother, Mukesh Ambani, to pick the company’s tower and fibre assets for his own telecom enterprise, Reliance Jio. The total consideration is pegged at around Rs 20,000 to Rs 23,000 crore to be paid over the next seven years. Meanwhile, Reliance Communications and Reliance Telecom Infrastructure will go to the UV Asset Reconstruction Company.

Other scams that rocked India

TRP scam

Television Rating Points (TRPs) are the basis on which television channels rake in the moolah. Advertisers put their campaigns on a channel with high TRPs, programmes are shut or extended while weighing in these ratings.

The Broadcast  Audience Research Council (BARC) has installed “Bar-O-meters” in over 45,000 empanelled households. While watching a show, members of the household register their presence by pressing their viewer ID button — every person in household has a separate ID — thus capturing the duration for which the channel was watched and by whom, and providing data on viewership habits across age and socio-economic groups.

In October, the Mumbai Police said they unearthed a “major racket” of gaming TRPs, by at least three channels, including Republic TV, and arrested four people, contending that the manipulated audience numbers were crucial because they directly translated into advertising revenue. The police filed a 1,400 page chargesheet in the fake TRP case. The crime branch has so far arrested 14 accused, including distribution head of Republic TV Ghanshayam Singh, in the case.

Kerala gold smuggling case

On July 5, 2020, 30 kg of gold worth around Rs 15 crore was seized by the customs department at Thiruvananthapuram airport in Kerala. The gold was found in a diplomatic luggage meant for delivery to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) consulate at Kerala’s capital.

A former PRO of the consulate, Sarith Kumar, had come to claim the bag. When the consulate was asked, they said they had not authorized Kumar to make any claims on their behalf. Kumar was arrested and he pointed fingers at Swapna Prabha aka Swapna Mohammed, a former consulate employee who was fired in 2019.

The can of worms opened, Swapna was recommended for the job by M Sivasankar, the principal secretary for the Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Sivasankar was suspended. The BJP and the Congress trained its guns towards Vijayan and demanded his resignation and questioning by the Enforcement Directorate. The CM dismissed the charge saying, “The Opposition is trying to foist the doings of officials on the government.”Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath

J&K’S ROSHNI LAND SCAM

Before the year ended, a major scam broke out in Jammu and Kashmir. It related to a decision by the Jammu and Kashmir government in 2001 to regularise the unauthorised occupation of the government land. The ownership of the land was to be transferred for payment of a fee.

The money collected from this scheme was to be used for the power project in Jammu and Kashmir. Hence, the enabling law was called the Roshni Act. The government set a target of Rs 25,000 crore to earn from the fees against title ownership to the beneficiaries.

In 2014, the CAG found that the Roshni Act proved to be a tool for land grab by several powerful people in Jammu and Kashmir. In November this year, the CBI registered a case in the Roshni land scam.

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