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06-10-2021
Bureau Report
NEW DELHI: The Indian government has announced an investigation into the Pandora Papers after several Indian businessmen and a prominent military man, among others, was named in the leaks, Geo News reported Tuesday.
Per the report, the Indian government has ordered a probe into various agencies, which will be headed by India’s Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT).
According to the Indian Ministry of Finance, the investigation into the Pandora Papers case will involve the Enforcement Directorate, the Reserve Bank of India, and the Finance Intelligence Unit.
The statement said the government had taken note of the Pandora Papers revelations and would take necessary action in accordance with the law.
According to Indian media, the Pandora Papers include the names of the former head of the military agency Lieutenant General (Retd) Rakesh Kumar Lomba and his son.
The owners of the Indian Premier League’s (IPL) team Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab have also turned out to be owners of offshore companies.
The Pandora Papers also mentions Indian businessman Pramod Mittal, as well as a family that runs a private hospital in Delhi. Per the probe, the said family owns an offshore company worth $35 million.
It is believed that the Pandora Papers include the names of 300 Indians whose offshore companies and other assets have come to light.
Branded the Pandora papers, the latest leak of offshore financial records of some of the world’s richest and most powerful people include the names of over 300 Indians. The global leak 
exposes offshore dealings and as many as 12 million documents from 14 companies in offshore tax havens with details of ownership of 29,000 offshore companies and Trusts. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which involved the BBC and The Guardian newspaper in the UK and The Indian Express in India among 150 media outlets in its investigation, claims it obtained the trove of more than 11.9 million confidential files to find secret financial dealings of many super-rich.
As per a report in The Indian Express, the Pandora papers leak is “a one-year investigation of data linked to India… reveals how individuals and businesses, many already under the scanner, are pushing the envelope to evade detection, using loopholes in the law at home and the lax jurisdiction of tax havens.” The report notes that while there are over 300-plus Indian names in the leaked data, the offshore holdings of as many as “60 prominent individuals and companies” will be revealed in the coming days.
The first list of Indian named that have been made public so far in the Pandora Papers leak are;
Reliance ADAG boss Anil Ambani: The Pandora Papers investigated by The Indian Express reveal that the chairman of Reliance ADA Group and his representatives own at least 18 
offshore companies in Jersey, British Virgin Islands (BVI) and Cyprus. In February 2020, following a dispute with three Chinese state-controlled banks, Ambani declared bankruptcy in one UK court and said that his net worth was zero. The court then observed that “there are questions about the extent to which Ambani has any offshore interests, because if so they have not been declared”. And, three months later, Anil Ambani was ordered to pay $716 million to the banks, but he did not and denied having any asset in any entity across the globe.
Cricketer Sachin Tendulkar: ICIJ’s latest investigation also revealed the name of legendary cricketer and Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar among the celebrities named in the ‘Pandora Papers’ leak. As per The Indian Express report, Tendulkar along with members of his family, figures in the Pandora Papers as Beneficial Owners of an offshore entity in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) which was liquidated in 2016.
Sister of fugitive jeweler Nirav Modi: Before fugitive diamond jeweller Nirav Modi fled India in January 2018, his sister Purvi Modi reportedly set up a firm in the British Virgin Islands to act as a corporate protector of a trust formed through the Trident Trust Company, Singapore. The 
investigative reports show that the firm, Brookton Management Ltd, was set up in December 2017 to act as the corporate protector of The Deposit Trust.
Husband of Biocon founder Kiran Mazumder Shaw: John McCallum Marshall Shaw, a British citizen and the husband of Kiran Mazumder Shaw, promoter of Biocon, set up a trust with keys to a person who banned by Sebi for insider trading. In July 2021, SEBI had barred Kunal Ashok Kashyap for one year in a case related to alleged insider trading activities in the shares of Biocon. But the regulatory authorities were not aware that Kashyap was the ‘Protector’ of The Deanstone Trust, set up in New Zealand in July 2015 by Mauritius-based Glentec International, the ‘Settlor’. As per the reports of the Indian Express, Glentec, which holds shares of Biocon Ltd, is 99 per cent owned by John McCallum Marshall Shaw.
Bollywood actor Jackie Shroff: The Pandora papers have further revealed that popular Bollywood actor Jackie Shroff was the prime beneficiary of a trust set up in New Zealand by his mother-in-law. He also made “substantial contributions” to this trust, which had a Swiss bank account and owned an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands, records show.
Corporate Lobbyist Niira Radia: Named earlier figured in both The Panama Papers and The Paradise Papers, corporate lobbyist Niira (Nira) Radia has once again figured in the Pandora Papers with about a dozen offshore firms and a more detailed account of transactions executed by these firms including the purchase of a $251,500 watch in Dubai through one of her BVI companies.
The Pandora Papers are a follow-up to a similar project released in 2016 called the Panama Papers” compiled by the same journalistic group. The latest bombshell is even more expansive, porting through nearly 3 terabytes of data the equivalent of roughly 750,000 photos on a smartphone leaked from 14 different service providers doing business in 38 different jurisdictions in the world. The records date back to the 1970s, but most of the files span from 1996 to 2020.
In contrast, the Panama Papers culled through 2.6 terabytes of data leaked by one now-defunct law firm called Mossack Fonseca that was located in the country that inspired that project’s nickname.
