The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday registered a forex violation case to probe ousted Tata Group Chairman Cyrus Mistry’s allegation that fraudulent transactions of Rs 22 crore, involving non-existent entities in India and Singapore, were carried out in an instance involving Air Asia airlines. BJP leader Subramanian Swamy also petitioned on the same matter citing the findings in the Forensic Audit Report of Tata Sons exposing the payout to dubious persons including one Dubai resident Hamid Reza Malakotipour, declared by the US administration as “Global Terrorist”.
ED has issued summons to the airline’s officials and a few others to submit relevant documents and explain the matter to investigators next week as part of its probe into the case registered under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). Two weeks back Delhi High Court also summoned the controversial Forensic Audit Report exposing dubious payouts from Tata Group to Air Asia linked operations.
ED officials said the probe will also look at a specific transaction of Rs 12 crore, out of Rs 22 crore, made to a Singaporean firm. They said the agency would first go into the documents and findings of an in-house forensic investigation, as claimed by Mistry.
In October, flagging “ethical concerns” in Tata Group's joint venture with Air Asia, Mistry had claimed a forensic investigation had revealed fraudulent transactions of Rs 22 crore involving non-existent entities in India and Singapore. In a letter written to the Board members of Tata Sons a day after he was ousted on October 24, Mistry said, “Board members and trustees are also aware that in the case of Air Asia, ethical concerns have been raised with respect to certain transactions as well as overall prevailing culture within the organisation.
“A recent forensic investigation revealed fraudulent transactions of Rs 22 crore involving non-existent parties in India and Singapore.” Mistry went on to allege that “executive trustee Mr Venkataraman, who is on the board of Air Asia and also a shareholder in the company, considered these transactions as non-material and did not encourage further study”. In his complained to ED Chief Karnal Singh, Swamy said all these doubtful payments were happened as per the directions of none other Ratan Tata.