‘Sandesaras have deep pockets and cultivated key bureaucrats in India and nations they had business interests in’.
New Delhi: Albania and Nigeria, who have given refuge to one of India’s most wanted families and have refused to extradite them, were among the beneficiaries of the Ministry of External Affairs “vaccine maitri” programme.
As per the numbers shared by the MEA, while Nigeria got 40.24 lakh vaccines (the third largest after Bangladesh and the United Kingdom of the 95 countries that were given the vaccines), Albania received 0.50 (in lakh) vaccines.
In September last year, a Delhi court, while accepting the plea of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), had declared the promoters of Sterling Biotech promoters—Sandesara brothers—as “fugitive economic offenders” under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act. Those who were declared as fugitives under this order were Nitin JayantilalSandesara, Chetan JayantilalSandesara, Nitin’s wife Dipti Chetan JayantilalSandesara and Nitin’s brother-in-lawHiteshkumarNarendrabhai Patel.
All the four members fled India sometime in 2017 after defrauding PSU banks of over Rs 8,100 crore. The investigation in the case is being done by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
International media and local media of Albania and Nigeria have confirmed that the Sandesaras have been given citizenship of Albania and they now shuttle between Nigeria, where they have set up large-scale business in the field of oil production, and Albania.
In January 2019, Nitin Sandesara was appointed as the Honorary Consul of Albania in Nigeria, a post which he held till December 2019.
Incidentally, as per a case filed in the Supreme Court of India in April this year, Indian oilPSUs,including Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited and the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, were buying oil from one of the many Sterling Biotech group entities, Sterling Oil Exploration & Energy Production Co. (SEEPCO).
According to official sources, the Sandesaras have deep pockets which they used to cultivate important bureaucrats in India and in whichever countries they had business interests, which perhaps explains how an individual against whom India had moved the Interpol was made the Consul.
“It was their money which allowed them to flee India as soon as the agencies started doing their preliminary inquiries against them in 2017. They were told by their friends in the Income tax department, whom they had obliged all these years, about Indian agencies beginning their investigation against them. We executed the Look Out Notice against them in August 2017, but they had fled India long before that.The CBI and ED got involved in the case in October, but by then, it was too late,” an official said.
In August 2017, the CBI had filed an FIR against three senior Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officers Sunil Kumar Ojha (IRS 1986) who was then the Principal Commissioner, Revenue Tax,Guntur, Subhash Chandra, who was at that time Commissioner, Revenue Tax, Thane, and Manas Shankar Ray (IRS 1985), the then Commissioner, Revenue Tax, Ahmedabad, for allegedly helping the Sandesaras set up offshore entities to help them launder money. The CBI had found that these three officials were being paid in cash and in kind since 2011 by the Sandesaras. According to the FIR, these officers accepted more than five crores each from the company in 2011 itself.
Incidentally, on 30 November 2017, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) empanelled two of these IRS officers as Chief Commissioners of Income Tax. The two included Sunil Kumar Ojha and Manas Shankar Roy who were named as accused number one and accused number three in the CBI’s 11 page FIR for accepting crores of rupees as bribe. Days later, the said empanelment order was cancelled.
The Sunday Guardian sent a detailed questionnaire to both the Albanian and Nigerian governments on the issue, but no response was received from them. The CBI, too, did not respond on the issue of the status of the FIR that was filed against the three IRS officers for allegedly helping the Sandesaras.