Mumbai: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) lens on R. Venkataramanan, managing trustee of Tata Trusts and director in AirAsia India board, along with AirAsia global chief Tony Fernandes, has put the spotlight again on the allegations made by former Tata Sons chairman Cyrus Mistry in his exit letter to the board in October 2016. Mistry had pointed at corporate governance lapses at AirAsia India, a joint venture between the Tatas and Malaysian airline AirAsia Berhad.
The matter assumes significance as the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) is set to give a date of judgement on June 12 on a plea filed by Mistry on his removal by the Tata Sons board.
Apart from raising corporate governance issues at AirAsia, Mistry had identified other business weaknesses which he had referred to as “legacy hotspots’’. These included the failed Nano project, Tata Steel’s loss-making European subsidiary, Tata Teleservices and Taj Hotels’ off-balance sheet project to come up at Sea Rock hotel in the Bandra area of Mumbai.
Some 18 months after the Mistry letter, on May 29, 2018, the CBI registered a case against Venkataramanan, Fernandes and others over alleged violation of norms for securing international flying licence. According to the FIR, AirAsia executives and directors tried to influence government officials to relax the 5/20 rules in the aviation sector. There was also a violation of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) rules.
In his exit letter, Mistry had said a forensic investigation by Deloitte revealed fraudulent transactions of Rs 220 million involving non-existent parties in India and Singapore. This payment is currently under probe by the CBI. According to the Mistry camp, the day he was to present the Deloitte report to the Tata Sons board, he was sacked.
Another recent investigation too is around an allegation made by Mistry in 2016. On April 27, 2018, the CBI registered a case against former Aircel promoter C. Sivasankaran and his company’s executives in an alleged Rs 6-billion bank fraud case. The agency also booked 15 senior executives, current and former, of IDBI Bank as the Rs 6-billion loan went bad. Siva was a minority investor in Tata Teleservices and Mistry had alleged that Siva received several sweetheart deals from the Tata group. The Tatas have denied the charges.
In fact, one of the first tasks by Mistry’s successor, N. Chandrasekaran, was to sort out the mess in these “hot spot” companies. Last year, Tata Sons sold off its loss-making wireless telephony business under Tata Teleservices almost for free to Bharti Airtel apart from announcing a plan to merge its enterprise business with Tata Communications.
The group is in talks with the government of India for the merger as the government is a 26% stake holder in Tata Communications. The enterprise business, valued at $1 billion, received an offer from a group investors led by former Tata group official Mukund Rajan and TPG but it was not accepted by the Tatas.
04/06/18 Dev Chatterjee/The Wire
To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline
The matter assumes significance as the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) is set to give a date of judgement on June 12 on a plea filed by Mistry on his removal by the Tata Sons board.
Apart from raising corporate governance issues at AirAsia, Mistry had identified other business weaknesses which he had referred to as “legacy hotspots’’. These included the failed Nano project, Tata Steel’s loss-making European subsidiary, Tata Teleservices and Taj Hotels’ off-balance sheet project to come up at Sea Rock hotel in the Bandra area of Mumbai.
Some 18 months after the Mistry letter, on May 29, 2018, the CBI registered a case against Venkataramanan, Fernandes and others over alleged violation of norms for securing international flying licence. According to the FIR, AirAsia executives and directors tried to influence government officials to relax the 5/20 rules in the aviation sector. There was also a violation of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) rules.
In his exit letter, Mistry had said a forensic investigation by Deloitte revealed fraudulent transactions of Rs 220 million involving non-existent parties in India and Singapore. This payment is currently under probe by the CBI. According to the Mistry camp, the day he was to present the Deloitte report to the Tata Sons board, he was sacked.
Another recent investigation too is around an allegation made by Mistry in 2016. On April 27, 2018, the CBI registered a case against former Aircel promoter C. Sivasankaran and his company’s executives in an alleged Rs 6-billion bank fraud case. The agency also booked 15 senior executives, current and former, of IDBI Bank as the Rs 6-billion loan went bad. Siva was a minority investor in Tata Teleservices and Mistry had alleged that Siva received several sweetheart deals from the Tata group. The Tatas have denied the charges.
In fact, one of the first tasks by Mistry’s successor, N. Chandrasekaran, was to sort out the mess in these “hot spot” companies. Last year, Tata Sons sold off its loss-making wireless telephony business under Tata Teleservices almost for free to Bharti Airtel apart from announcing a plan to merge its enterprise business with Tata Communications.
The group is in talks with the government of India for the merger as the government is a 26% stake holder in Tata Communications. The enterprise business, valued at $1 billion, received an offer from a group investors led by former Tata group official Mukund Rajan and TPG but it was not accepted by the Tatas.
04/06/18 Dev Chatterjee/The Wire
0 comments:
Post a Comment