Swamy Exposes Chidambaram Scam

Stench of the Aircel-Maxis sleaze

Chidambaram”s response unconvincing?

BJP demands probe, his resignation?

Dr Subramanian Swamy

Aircel is a telecom company providing mobile phone wireless services using 2G and 3G spectrum. Before 2006 it was wholly owned by a Tamil Nadu based capitalist called Sivasankaran, but by January 2006 it came to be owned by a Malaysia born citizen called T Anantha Krishnan, popularly called TAK. He is the son of a Sri Lankan Tamil immigrant, who arrived as indentured plantation worker.  

T Anantha Krishnan”s second wife is Latchoumie (Lakshmi?) Marie Helene (LMH) born to a white French father who belongs the Le Chateau Briand family, and Tamil mother. She is popularly known as Mme ‘TAK’.

TAK made his fortune first in gambling casinos and laundering LTTE drug and extortion loot garnered by the terrorist organisation treasurer K Padmanabhan (now Sri Lanka custody), and then branched into construction etc., to become a powerfully influential person in Malaysia, and had helped Quatrrocchi grease the system in that country and escape the law because of the CBI’s deliberately chosen counsel.

Mme TAK, according to my usually reliable sources in Paris, is the owner of a very big art gallery, La Fantaisie, which can be described as the Christie”s in France! Carla Bruni, the Italian wife of former French President Sarkozy, is a partner in this venture since two years!

Smt TAK is also owner of a sophisticated Music Recording House in Paris. Carla, who is also a pop singer, uses Smt TAK”s studios for registering and issue of her albums!

Sonia, her son Rahul, and her sisters are frequent visitors. Whenever Rahul goes to France, he stays with Smt TAK. He had been there a month and half back.

Smt TAK is also owner of vine yards in northern Colombia with joint ownership with the Colombian rich families Bettancourt and Katalli. Rahul Gandhi’s former live  in friend Veronique is connected to the Kattalli cartel.

Smt Tak is also one of the major shareholders in the French aeronautical company Dassault whose worldwide rejected fighter aircraft Rafaele was bought by India’s Defence Ministry for a hefty 20 per cent bribe. 

But the TAKs are smart. This time in the French election they backed Hollande, who won the Presidency.

It is in this context we have to see the Aircel-Maxis deal since it impinges on India’s national security as did Swan-Etisalat and Unitech-Telenor deals. Telecom towers and equipment can do cyber warfare, snoop on closed door conversations and read email.

The Indian owner of Aircel, Sivasankaran is a financial buccaneer, working always on the edge. In 2005 after getting a spectrum licence, and short of funds, he put it out that he was looking for foreign direct investment. Maxis approached him incognito through the Standard Chartered Bank. It is now alleged in an FIR of the CBI, that at that stage the then Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran entered the scene. According to Justice Shivraj Patil Report (available on the DoT website), Maran misused his office to arm twist Sivasankaran to sell all his shares in Aircel to Maxis in January 2006. Whether that was a  drama by Maran and Sivasankaran or real, only the Supreme Court inquiry will reveal. Sivasankaran however became ready to sell.

But there was a problem. FDI Rules require an Indian partner to hold at least 26 per cent of the equity for the deal to be okayed by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB). Three months earlier till January 2006, it was at least 51 per cent, i.e., Indian to be majority partner. Maran got that changed to just 26 per cent and the Indian partner to be in minority. But Maxis owner TAK would have none of that. He wanted Aircel to be a wholly owned company of his. That was against the FDI rules. So Maran was in a fix. His brother and owner of Sun TV Kalanidhi was promised Rs 800 crores bounty for his media venture by TAK, and he was salivating furiously.

Enter P Chidambaran, the Dawood Ibrahim of Indian Finance, and Jesus Christ in Lok Sabha. He was then as Finance Minister which meant the ex-officio Chairman of the FIPB. As with Raja in the January 2008 Chidambaram advising him on “share dilution” which landed Raja in Tihar, Chidambaram advised Maran to devise a trick: Form a Joint Venture with a young ambitious entrepreneur, all expenses paid. Thus they found Sunita Reddy, part owner of Apollo Hospital.

Thus Deccan Ventures came into being, but it was joint only in name. By using a financial derivative, Maxis owned all of it. With the money thus put it, Deccan purchased 26 per cent of Aircel. TAK declared proudly to Malaysian Stock Exchange and to his company shareholders’ meeting that he had bought 99.3 per cent of Aircel equity (0.7 per cent still left with sivasankaran) and thus dejure Aircel became a wholly owned company of Maxis.

But TAK filed for permission with FIPB as a 74 per cent owner and got it cleared in March 2006. But there was a catch. Chidambaram did not like it that Maran had de-camped with the bribe loot. So the March 2006 FIPB clearance was not made in the name of Global Communications, a wholly owned company of Maxis, but in the name of some US company. Then Chidambaram sat on the file while TAK sweated with the thought of being so near yet so far.

Enter son Karti, fixer, ambulance chaser, money launderer, small arms dealer etc., and through a maze of cross holdings acquires at least 5 per cent of the Aircel shares before father PC re-convenes the FIPB in October 2006, and delete the name of the US company and put TAK company as the 74 per cent owner of Aircel equity. Karti’s wife Dr Srinidhi starts working as a consulting doctor with Apollo Hospital. All are happy now.

So what is criminal offence? The biggest is the bogus FIPB clearance. P Chidambaram has committed offence of criminal misconduct under Section 13(1)(d)(iii) of the Prevention of Corruption Act which entails a seven year jail term for Maran, Karti, and may be Sivasankaran too under sub-Section (ii) read with IPC 120A&B. The Supreme Court has been apprised by me on May 10 last, and the matter will be heard after the vacations on July 17. If Manmohan Singh does not want to testify in court, he must get rid of Chidambaram from the Cabinet. This is what all Congress leaders except one want.  

In the meantime the Indonesian Police has issued an arrest warrant against Maxis CEO Roy Marshall for fraud, cheating and money laundering in another connected company Astro. Its money trail leads to a favourite English news TV channel. Marshall is also a Sri Lankan Tamil, and has played host to Chidambaram’s wife Nalini when the deal was being brokered.             

The corruption pimple under UPA rule has defiled Bharat Mata but now it seems about to burst. Cure lies in operating vishkanya poison from our body politic.?

Different business interests of Karti Chidambaram?

The allegation was first raised by Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy, who accused P Chidambaram, then Finance Minister, of delaying clearance to the Aircel-Maxis deal in 2006, to benefit his son. Swamy contends that Karti received a 5 per cent stake in Aircel, a charge the latter denies.

Companies owned by Karti or his known associates (this includes companies that are or were at some point owned by Karti or family members):

*    Ausbridge Holdings and Investments Pvt Ltd
*    Advantage Strategic Consulting Pvt Ltd
*    Chess Management Services Pvt Ltd
*    Chess Health Care Pvt Ltd
*    Halidon Marketing Pvt Ltd
*    Kriya FMCG Distributors Pvt Ltd
*    Kaiser Luxury Hotels Pvt Ltd
*    Kaiser Surya Samudra Resorts Pvt Ltd

Known associates and directors of companies owned by Karti: CBN Reddy, S Sundar, Mohanan Rajesh.
Swamy”s allegation

Advantage Strategic Consulting (ASC), a company owned by Karti, paid Rs 26 lakh to Aircel Televentures. He received a 5 per cent stake in return.

ASC”s 2006-07 balancesheet, under the head “loans and advances”, a payment of Rs 26 lakh is shown as having been made to Aircel Televenture Ltd. At this point, however, Karti had no equity stake in Advantage Strategic.

It was solely owned by Ravi Viswanathan and Padma Viswanathan. The company had business relations with other companies owned by Karti.

Alongside the payment to Aircel Televentures, payments made to Karti-owned companies such as Chess Management Services, Chess Health Care Solutions and Halidon Marketing Pvt Ltd have also been listed under the same head.

There is no entry to show that ASC held any stake in Aircel Televentures (the company later became Siva Ventures, named after billionaire owner C Sivasankaran) in either company”s balance sheet.

Siva Ventures, being a large company, does not list individual transactions on its balance-sheet schedules. Records of Siva Ventures prior to 2006 are unavailable.

In a legal notice served to Subramanian Swamy, lawyers for Advantage Strategic have said that the Rs 26 lakh payment was from Aircel for consultancy services rendered by Advantage. It is unclear whether entries against Chess Management and Halidon are also similarly amounts paid by them to Advantage for consultancy services. ?

Litany of untruths

o Govt claimed no delay on part of Chidambaram in approving the Aircel-Maxis deal. It said the March 7, 2006 meeting of FIPB cleared the Maxis investment of around Rs. 4,000 crore in Aircel.

o But an October 17, 2006 Press release of FIPB shows Chidambaram cleared the deal only in the October 3, 2006 meeting of FIPB.

o The vital information that the Govt concealed is that at the March 7, 2006 meeting of the FIPB, clearances were given to another company with similar name – BT Global Communication (Mauritius) Ltd.

o The FIPB also did not show the amount of foreign investment and kept the concerned column blank. Normally all FIPB clearances would specify the value of foreign investment.?