In our edition dated May 15, 2013, The Pioneer prominently published on Page 1 (continued on Page 4) a report titled “Did Minister favour son over nationIJ” The report claimed that Mr Amit Sibal, advocate and son of Telecom (and now also law) Minister, Mr Kapil Sibal, “appears for Vodafone Essar limited quite frequently before the Delhi High Court.
The report further stated: “Starting August 2007, the junior Sibal appeared before the Delhi HC at least seven times for the Telecom Company in the Telecom Watchdog versus Union of India and other cases.” It was stated in the report that such appearances continued till January 2009.
It has been pointed out to us that Vodafone has never been a client of Mr Amit Sibal and, therefore, the question of appearing for the Company, frequently or otherwise, simply does not exist. The Pioneer report suggested by implication, that the new law Minister, Mr Kapil Sibal, initiated the process of settlement with Vodafone for the Rs 11,000 crore tax dispute immediately (“within 24 hours”) upon assuming charge of the law portfolio on May 13, 2013, presumably because his son represented this Company in Court. This, it has been pointed out to us, is a completely erroneous suggestion as Vodafone was never a client of Mr Amit Sibal.
Upon conducting our own inquiry, The Pioneer finds that the newspaper was wrong in stating that Vodafone was a client of Mr Amit Sibal and, therefore, all interpretations and inferences arising therefrom are totally unwarranted.
On account of the erroneous assumption that Mr Amit Sibal represented Vodafone, our report made certain observations against him and the Telecom and law Minister, Mr Kapil Sibal, which are not justified in light of the facts now before us.
We acknowledge that Mr Amit Sibal is an independent professional of high standing who, in fact, returned all briefs from other telecom companies too, when Mr Kapil Sibal assumed the Telecom portfolio in 2010. The damage caused to the reputation of Mr Amit Sibal and his father, Mr Kapil Sibal, on account of our report is regretted and we apologise for that.
— Issued by The Pioneer Management