Bakul Nath, the NRI son of veteran Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath, is the latest addition to the ever-growing list of Indians named in Pandora Papers, a report published by Indian Express revealed.
Besides Bakul Nath, the key accused in the AgustaWestland scam Rajiv Saxena is also present on the list of people who allegedly have undisclosed properties and entities abroad. As per the report, their names featured because of their offshore networks and alleged money flows.
Records accessed by the publication allegedly brings forth new evidence in the corruption case being handled by the CBI and ED.
Bakul Nath’s name first cropped up in the interrogation report of Rajiv Saxena, who is currently on bail. As per records, Saxena colluded with Delhi-based lawyer Gautam Khaitan and reportedly got €12.40 million from AgustaWestland in the account of Interstellar Technologies, 99.99 per cent of the shares of which were taken over by Saxena by 2000. It is alleged that the embezzled money was then used to pay the middlemen.
“We (he and co-accused Sushen Mohan Gupta) received bridge funding through Pristine River Investments, a company managed by John Docherty for Bakul Nath, son of Kamal Nath. Thus, indirectly funds from Interstellar Technologies were used to repay the loans from Pristine River Investment,” Saxena had told the Indian Express last year.
Spector Consultancy Services, an offshore company set up by Trident Trust in February 2018, linked the NRI Bakul Nath to Swiss national Docherty, the Pandora Papers revealed. The company says Nath is the Beneficial Owner and lists him with a Dubai address. Docherty, it says, is its first director.
Another offshore company, Cellbrook Limited, is listed as a shareholder of Spector Consultancy Services. The organisation is listed as a real estate company and its assets in the first three years are pegged at $10 million.
The investigation carried out by the publication revealed Saxena had set up a trust Tanay Holdings Limited in 2014, which was linked to shares or ownership of 14 other companies or assets, including his villa in Palm Jumeirah, a flat in London, and other properties.
In 2014, Saxena set up Matrix UAE Trust, a business trust offshore with Matrix International Limited as its underlying BVI firm. Several of Saxena’s flagship companies were linked to the AgustaWestland kickbacks and were reportedly pledged to Matrix UAE Trust.
The AgustaWestland deal was cancelled by the Centre in 2014 but it was not until 2017 when Saxena’s wife Shivani was caught at the Chennai airport that the link of Saxenas to the VVIP Chopper scam came to the fore.
Following her arrest, Rajiv asked Trident Trust to liquidate the structures of Tanay Trust, Matrix UAE Trust, and their linked BVIs, and hand their shares over to him urgently.
Saxena was arrested by the UAE government security agencies in Dubai and later extradited to India on January 30, 2019. In his interrogation, Rajiv Saxena had named key Congress leaders and their relatives over alleged involvement in the Rs 3,600-crore VVIP chopper scam. In his interrogation in connection with the scam, Saxena named senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid, Kamal Nath’s son Bakul Nath and Sonia Gandhi’s close aide Ahmed Patel
Congress leader and close friend of the Gandhis Captain Satish Sharma named in Pandora Papers
Besides Bakul Nath and Rajiv Saxena, the investigation conducted into the Pandora Papers also threw up the name of Congress leader Captain Satish Sharma, who had close ties with the Gandhis and had passed away in February this year. The investigation revealed that Sharma was among those who had undisclosed properties and entities abroad.
At least 10 members of Captain Satish Sharma’s family, including his wife Sterre, children and grandchildren, are listed as beneficiaries under a trust named Jan Zegers Trust—an organisation incorporated in the Cayman Islands in 1995. The trust was later registered under the governing law of New Zealand as well.
Significantly, Sharma was then Union Minister of Petroleum and Gas under the Congress-led government at the Centre and had not made any declaration about the same to the Election Commission while filing poll nomination papers. He was an MP from the Amethi and later Raebareli Lok Sabha seats, the two seats preferred by the Gandhi family.
There was another trust named JZ II Trust that was incorporated in October 2015 when Sharma was a Congress Rajya Sabha member. The investigation by the Indian Express found Sharma to be the protector of the two aforementioned trusts and his wife Sterre listed as a beneficiary under them.
