Come clean on land deal: Irani to Sibal

The BJP on Thursday fielded Union Minister Smriti Irani to accuse Kapil Sibal of doing business with money-launderers and asked Congress President Rahul Gandhi if such dealings were acceptable to him. Sibal responded by recalling the controversy around Irani’s educational qualifications and asserting that the minister “does not understand the meaning of money-laundering”.

At a press conference, Irani quoted a report published in an Indian website, OpIndia , and similar reports in a South African website Daily Maverick to highlight that Sibal and his wife bought a company and land from a “money-launderer”.

“The summary of this story is that there was a person who was being investigated for bribery by CBI during the UPA tenure, a person had been found by South African journalists to be involved in money laundering. Mr Sibal and his wife purchased a company named Grand Castellow from the same person. The OpIndia article says that Grand Castellow, with no business in financial year 2013-14, purchased a piece of land which eventually costs ₹43.79 crore,” said Irani.

“OpIndia says that once this land got registered in 2014-15, it was re-valued at a market rate of ₹89 crore. The article quotes from the auditor reports and says that subject to this evaluation, the financial statements gave a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the company. In 2015-16, this company changed its accounting policy. In 2015-16, it switches it from market value to historical cost methods and in the next year, Sibal and his wife become the owners of the company…The question that arises today, when South African journalists were asking these questions, is where was the need for Sibal to hide facts?” she asked, quoting news reports that Sibal “stone-walled” South African journalists probing the story.

The Minister then took on the Congress President, demanding to know whether Sibal’s financial dealings were “acceptable” to him.

“Some people will say that it is Sibal’s right to buy a company which has a very shadowy existence, to engage with an alleged money-launderer. While people might say that Mr Sibal has the right to engage with a money-launderer, the question is whether this is politically acceptable to Rahul Gandhi,” she said.

Sibal, on his part, asserted that these were “tactics to divert attention from the CBSE exam leak”.

“I was hoping that the Minister would say something to the anguished students who have been caused unacceptable stress by their government’s inefficiency by the exam paper leak. But you can’t expect that from ministers in this government or BJP karyakarta s (workers) which is how Mrs Irani presented herself today. All I can ask is – what is the charge? What is the illegality? I have bought a piece of land with my tax-paid earnings. Let this government show me what the problem is,” said Sibal.

“Does she ask the Prime Minister why Mehul bhai (PNB scam accused Mehul Choksi), a money-launderer is so close to him? Why is Nirav Modi getting himself photographed with him? Why are Aadhaar data being leaked? Why are exam papers being leaked? Why are election dates being leaked? I suppose everything can be leaked except their own degrees. When their own degrees come into question, then they know how to secure that information. It is just so sad that the ruling government has stooped to this level,” said Sibal.

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