Recent scams and controversies in India-2

 

Saradhachit fund scam

 

Key person : Sudipto Sen, (founder, chairman and managing director
of the group), Debjani Mukherjee, Kunal Ghosh In Kolkata, West Bengal

The Saradha Group financial scandal is popularly known as Saradha chit fund scam.

It's a financial scam that was caused by the collapse of a Ponzi scheme run by Saradha Group in 2013.

Saradha Group is a consortium of over 200 private companies. All 200 companies were running a wide variety of collective investment schemes (chit fund) throughout East India, especially in West Bengal, Odisha, Assam.

Collapsed of Saradha Group in 2013 caused a loss of Rs 200-300 billion (1 billion = 100 crore) to over 17 lakh investors.

 

What is Ponzi scheme?

Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation. An individual or organization (operator) invites investors to invest money into the scheme.

Operator pays returns to its investors from new capital paid to the operators by new investors.

Operators do not pay returns to investors from profit earned by the operator. Operators of such schemes usually entice new investors by offering higher returns than other investments.

Investments in Ponzi scheme are done in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent.

Lalit Gate :

 

Lalit Modi, an Indian businessman and cricket administrator. He was the first Chairman and Commissioner of the Indian Premier League (IPL), and ran the tournament for three years until 2010. He also served as the Chairman of the Champions League during 2008-2010. He was the Vice President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) during 2005-2010. He has also served as the President of the Rajasthan Cricket Association (2005-2009 and 2014-2015), and as the Vice President of the Punjab Cricket Association.

In March 2010, while Modi was in London, the Congress-led Indian Government revoked his passport. Modi challenged the decision in the Delhi High Court, and BJP leader SushmaSwaraj's Now Foreign minister) was one of the nine lawyers who represented him.

The High Court restored Modi's passport in August 2014.

 In June 2015, British Member of Parliament Keith Vaz was reported to the parliamentary standards commissioner for lobbying UK immigration officials on behalf of LalitModi. It was revealed that Vaz had mentioned a recommendation from SushmaSwaraj (then an opposition leader) in his correspondence with the immigration officials.

Modi's wife Minal was diagnosed with cancer during 2008-09, and was being treated in Portugal. In 2014, when requested by British Authorities, SushmaSwaraj requested the British authorities to go by law of the land. British authorities provided Modi travel documents to attend to his ailing wife in Portugal.

Modi also revealed that in August 2011, BJP leader VasundharaRaje (also an opposition leader at that time) signed a document supporting his application to the British authorities. The application, which was never presented to the British authorities, had a secrecy clause that it should not be revealed to the Indian authorities. In her affidavit, Raje had claimed that Modi was a victim of a "political witch hunt" by the Congress. Earlier, in 2013, a Jaipur-based lawyer Poonam Chand Bhandari had filed a public interest litigation in the Delhi high court, claiming that LalitModi had transferred millions of rupees to a company owned by VasundharaRaje and her son Dushyant Singh. In June 2015, the Congress accused VasundharaRaje of corruption, alleging that she had granted favours to LalitModi in exchange for the money. BJP argued that Raje had acted as a friend of Modi, and not in her capacity as a political leader.

The controversy resulting from these revealations was termed as "Modigate" by the Indian media.

The opposition parties accused the BJP leaders of shielding LalitModi, who was wanted in several cases of financial irregularities in India.

As of 2015, LalitModi has not been convicted of any charges as part of the ED investigation.

The issue rocked Parliament where the Congress gunned for Swaraj demanding her resignation for helping a “fugitive” escape the Indian law.

DDCA Scam

 

The DDCA scam began making headlines after the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal alleged that the CBI’s raid at his Principal Secretary Rajendra Kumar’s office was carried out to look for files related to the alleged financial irregularities in the cricket body when it was headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

Finance Minister Jaitley, headed DDCA for 13 years till 2013, is being accused of corruption by Delhi’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party. 

Shri Jaitley had moved court against the AAP leaders, complaining that they had made defamatory statements and targeted him for alleged corruption in the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA).

Rail neer scam

 

Sale of cheaper packaged water in place of Rail Neer.

Key Persons : M S Chalia, Sandeep Silas and some more persons.

It is alleged that the "accused had shown favour to the private firms in supply of cheap packaged drinking water (PDW) other than mandatory 'Rail Neer' on premium trains, including Rajdhani and Shatabdi Express.

During searches at various places, including Delhi/Noida, etc., at the residence and official premises of private caterers, huge cash of about Rs 28.5 crore (approx) was recovered. A large number of incriminating documents were also recovered from the premises of the accused,

 Investigations have revealed that during the period January 1, 2013, to December 31, 2014, the licensee caterers had allegedly not picked up Rail Neer as per the quota prescribed by IRCTC and supplied other cheaper brands of packaged drinking water (PDW) in Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains, despite it not being allowed.

They had allegedly claimed reimbursement from Northern Railway as was prescribed for supply of Rail Neer. As per railway agreement/guidelines, except Rail Neer, no other brand of PDW was approved by the railway for supply in Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains originating from Delhi.

They were, however, allegedly providing other brands of PDW costing between Rs 5-7 per bottle (approx) and claiming Rs 15 per bottle (approx) from the railways.