Vivek Doval, son of National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval appeared before the court today to record his statement in connection with a criminal defamation case Vivek Doval had filed against the controversial left-wing magazine The Caravan and Congress Leader Jairam Ramesh, reported Bar and Bench.
According to the reports, while stating that he is a UK citizen as well as an overseas citizen of India, Vivek Doval said that he has filed this complaint to redress his grievances against the Caravan and Congress Leader Jairam Ramesh for making defamatory allegations against him and his family.
Vivek Doval appearing before the court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal on Tuesday said that the allegations put forward by the magazine Caravan in its article titled ‘The D-Company’ were completely baseless and false.
Vivek Doval said that his father, NSA Ajit Doval confronted him with the article published in the magazine and questioned him regarding the correctness of the contents of the article. “I felt disturbed and humiliated on being questioned by my father in this manner as I have been a committed professional all my life,” said Vivek Doval.
“The article had a picture of my father and brother and the article referred to it as ‘D Company’, a criminal syndicate of Dawood Ibrahim”, said Doval. Vivek Doval further added that several questions were raised against the integrity of his family especially my father who has all along dedicated his life to the service of the country. Doval said that article published by the Caravan magazine branded him and his family as anti-national.
“It levelled allegations of money laundering, converting black money through my venture GNY Asia Fund. Without any basis, it was alleged that INR 8300 crore of black money was brought to India,” Doval said before the court.
“On January 17th, my father (NSA Ajit Doval) confronted me with the article published in The Caravan magazine and asked me about the correctness of the contents of the article, informed Doval. He said that he felt disturbed and humiliated on being questioned by his father (NSA Ajit Doval) in that manner as he has been a committed professional all my life.
He said without his integrity, as a fund manager, his professional career would be over. “People entrust their hard earned money with Fund Managers and if investment becomes risky, it causes a lot of anxiety not only in the mind of the existing investor but also prospective investors”, he said.
His advocate also submitted print-outs of derogatory tweets and retweets that referred to him as ‘ChottaDoval’.
“My business partner Amit Sharma and other investors even suggested that in a scenario like this, should I continue as the Fund Manager or should I step down and let somebody else head the Fund”, he said. He then submitted the returns of the last 18 years to the court.
He then charted how the idea of the fund had taken seed in 2012 and that his fund was never launched in India.
GNY Asia Fund was never launched it India. We never took subscriptions from any person based in India or ever marketed the Fund in India. But India was one of the investment destinations, Doval#VivekDoval #TheCaravan #JairamRamesh @thecaravanindia @Jairam_Ramesh
— Bar & Bench (@barandbench) January 30, 2019
He said that there was no question of an Indian resident in an FPI fund and that the question of Rs. 8300 crores invested in the Fund or routed through the Fund was impossible.
As per SEBI regulations, there can be no investment from an Indian resident in an FPI fund.. There is no question of any investment of 8300 crore in my Fund or routed through my Fund, Doval#VivekDoval #TheCaravan #JairamRamesh @thecaravanindia @Jairam_Ramesh
— Bar & Bench (@barandbench) January 30, 2019
He said that the entire corpus of his fund is Rs. 77 crores and at no point has the Fund even been as large as 1% of what Jairam Ramesh had alleged in his press conference and that in India the investment was 15% of the total corpus, which translates to USD 2 million.
He also said that the Fund exited the Indian market in August 2017.
We exited Indian market in August 2017 after we failed to find more investors in terms of the SEBI regulations on FPI license, Doval#VivekDoval #TheCaravan #JairamRamesh @thecaravanindia @Jairam_Ramesh
— Bar & Bench (@barandbench) January 30, 2019
On 16th January 2019, the Caravan Magazine had published an article targetting Ajit Doval’s son Vivek Doval. The article insinuated wrongdoing on the part of Vivek saying that he heads a hedge fund in Cayman islands even though his father, the NSA, talks about cracking down on tax havens.
Following the report, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh had accused Vivek Doval of tax evasion and had sought the RBI to make public details of FDI inflows from Cayman islands since demonetisation, which he claimed were to the tune of Rs 8,300 crore during 2017-18 and equalled total funds flowing into India between 2000 to 2017.
However, Ramesh did not substantiate his allegations with any documentary evidence. The Congress leader went on to claim Vivek Doval had involved in channelling money out of the country to bring them back to India after demonetisation.
