By-Ajay Jha
Indian investigator CBI could finally catch up with the senior IAS official and his family in the Yara-Kribhco scam, extensively reported by Indian Cooperative in the past. CBI has registered an FIR against former Finance Ministry Additional Secretary Jivtesh Singh Maini and his son Gurpreetesh Singh Maini and other familiy members.
CBI charges them for allegedly receiving bribe of USD one million (about Rs.6.4 crore) to crack a deal of a joint venture between Kribhco and Norwegian fertiliser major ‘Yara’ in 2007.
CBI sources said that during the inquiry registered last year, the agency found prima facie evidence of alleged pay-off to Maini and his sons G S Maini and TS Maini by Yara for securing a joint venture with Krishak Bharati Co-operative Limited (Kribhco) in 2007. The Agency has registered a case against Maini, then Additional Secretary in Finance Ministry, his two sons and their wives, besides unnamed officials of Yara and Kribhco.
The names thrown up by Norwagian investigators in accepting a bribe of one million USD is that of Jivtesh Singh Maini and his son Gurpreetesh Singh Maini. The incident dates back to 2007 when Jivtesh Singh Maini was Additional Secretary and Financial Advisor, Department of Fertilizers in GOI.
The sources said the office of Rhine and Ravi–a company owned by Maini’s son–in Lajpat Nagar, a farm house in Sainik Farms and a residential address in Chandigarh were searched.
A relieved Kribhco Chairman Chandra Pal Singh Yadav said that none of us –neither cooperators nor Kribhco officials are involved. FIR against Maini is in a way a clean chit to the cooperators of Kribhco. Earlier talking to Indian Cooperative on the issue Mr Yadav had said ” there was nothing in the project and for us it never took off the ground. If some government official struck a deal overseas we cannot help”.
Maini was on board of KRIBHCO. He served on the board of several prestigious bodies such as Hindustan Antibiotics Limited [HAL], Rastriya Chemicals & Fertilizers, Mumbai and M/s Hindustan Insecticides Ltd. Mr Maini had also been Chairman of NHAI and Private Secretary of a Punjab Chief Minister in the past.
Norwegian criminal investigators have said fertilizer giant Yara illegally paid $1million to a top Indian bureaucrat’s son in return for his helping it secure a joint venture with public sector firm Krishak Bharati Cooperative Limited (Kribhco) documents made available by Norwegian prosecutors to The Hindu show.
Yara routed $1 million into an offshore account held on behalf of Gurpreetesh Singh Maini and his father, Finance Ministry Additional Secretary and Kribhco board member Jivtesh Singh Maini, according to the Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime, Økokrim. “Both the offer and the payment constituted an improper advantage,” Økokrim’s Penalty Note to Yara states.
Yara, the world’s largest mineral fertilizer company, was fined $48.3 million for paying bribes to the Kribhco project in India, which eventually fell through, as well as separate projects in Libya and Switzerland.
“In April 2007,” the Penalty Note issued by Økokrim states, “members of Yara’s senior management team, on behalf of Yara, offered to make a deal with Gurpreetesh Singh Maini, the son of Dr. Jivtesh Singh Maini. Dr. Maini was at that time Additional Secretary and Financial Advisor in the Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers and a member of the board of Kribhco.”
“The offer of a deal with Gurpreetesh Singh Maini was made in the context of Dr. Jivtesh Singh Maini’s position,” the note adds.
Mr. Gurpreetesh Singh Maini was to receive $3million for securing a joint venture with Kribhco, to be paid in instalments of “$1 million per year during the period 1 January 2007-31 December 2009.”
Yara, the document records, “transferred the amount to an account in Hong Kong belonging to the company Krystal Holdings & Investments Limited (British Virgin Islands), a company whose beneficial owners were the spouses of Jivtesh Singh Maini and Gurpreetesh Singh Maini.” Mr. Jivtesh Singh Maini did not respond to multiple calls and text messages to his cell-phone number.
The payoffs to the Mainis, according to Økokrim, were part of multiple illegal transactions benefitting ousted Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi’s Minister for Petroleum, Shukri Ghanem, and Russian corporate chief Vasily Loginov.