Mumbai, 17th February, 2017 (GPN) : If the government continues its pace of putting the panama leaks matter in place by pushing and clearing the Tax Information Exchange Treaty, big names including Cyrus Mistry the recently ousted Chairman of Tata Sons Ltd will feel the heat of the results.

There is a list of 500 names including individuals and institutions in the Panama paper leaks that happened way back in 2016. Those named in the leaks are probably going through some sleepless nights, thanks to the Government that has fast tracked the signing of the Tax Information Exchange Treaty.
The government has been pushing Panama to seal a tax Information sharing pact as soon as possible and the Supreme Court on the other hand has agreed to examine a plea for ordering a CBI investigation against all Indian offshore bank account holders based on a PIL filed by advocate M L Sharma.
There are a total of 11.5 million documents in the data that has found its way out in the open. These contain details of offshore entities set up by Mossack Fonseca over the past 40 years. Many famous personalities from various fields including business, politics and Bollywood from India too have figured on that list.
One interesting name(s) that has featured in the Panama leaks includes the family members of the ousted Chairman of Tata Group Cyrus Mistry and members of the first family of Bollywood as well.
Cyrus Mistry and his self-proclaimed activism for good governance has usurped reams of paper over the past three odd months. Right from being warned about stopping the award of contracts to his family firms to his claims of insider trading by the Tata’s being trashed by SEBI, there has been a continuous hammering of the loud claims made by Mistry throughout this struggle to remain relevant in a corporate war that was lost the very day he decided to go for it. The NCLT’s decision was another awakening for Cyrus on this count.
The Mistry family operates a large business conglomerate in India under the aegis of Shapoorji Pallonji Group. Cyrus Mistry is the youngest son of Pallonji Shapoorji Mistry, the construction tycoon and chairman of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group and the largest individual shareholder of the Tata group. Ischian International Limited, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands, has been named in the Panama papers, whose shareholders include Cyrus Mistry’s father Pallonji Shapoorji, his mother Patsy Mistry and sister Laila Jehangir.
However, earlier it has been reported that the office of Pallonji Shapoorji Mistry, in an email, has denied the family’s involvement or being associated with any such organisation. “We wish to clarify that neither Shapoorji Pallonji Mistry nor Patsy Pallonji Mistry have made any investments in a company by the name of Ischian International Ltd nor do they have any financial interest in the company” read the statement. It also added that Laila Jehangir has been a non-resident Indian for 35 years. One of Pallonji Shapoorji Mistry’s two daughters is named Laila, and is married to fund manager Rustom Jehangir.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in a recent update on its website has stated that the Joint Secretary (LAC) Shri Ashok Das, who visited Panama between 30 Nov – 1 Dec, held a series of meetings with top government officials of Panama and among many other agendas discussed, one was to ‘finalize the Tax Information Exchange Agreement at the earliest. The TIEA agreement assumes importance as it will pave the way for India to get details about the offshore investments of the 500 Indians named in the Panama Leaks of April 2016.
One of the media group partners in the Panama Papers leaks has recently reported that India had sent 198 requests for information to 13 jurisdictions that host offshore entities owned by Indians named in the Panama Papers.
Some of the other industrialists mentioned in the leaks include billionaire property baron Kushal Pal Singh and nine members of his family, Vinod Adani, brother of billionaire Gautam Adani, billionaire real estate magnate Sameer Gehlaut, Anil Agarwal of the Vedanta Group, Aman Gupta Chairman and CEO of Veen Waters, Kabir Mulchandani of Akai and Hitachi partnership fame, the promoters of Apollo Tyres and Indiabulls. Two politicians who figure on the list are Shishir Bajoria from West Bengal and Anurag Kejriwal, the former chief of the Delhi unit of Loksatta Party.

Among other Indian celebrities who figure in the leaks are the members of first family of Bollywood –Amitabh Bachchan and his daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Records showed that Amitabh Bachchan served as director of four offshore shipping companies between 1993 and 1997. However Big B, as he is popularly known, issued a statement soon after the leaks that he did not know any of the companies, had not been a director of any of them and that “it is possible that (his) name has been misused”.
Not much progress has been made into nailing the hoarders of black money in the “tax haven” despite a multi-agency probe initiated by the Indian government following the leaks. The task force included various government agencies such as the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), FT&TR (Foreign Tax and Tax Research) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
However, not much progress was made into the investigations with Panama refusing to share the details of the offshore investments without a TIEA. Earlier, media reports have pointed out that advocate M L Sharma in his PIL demanding CBI probe has alleged that these offshore bank accounts and their funds were being “protected and allowed in circulation in the Indian stock market through regulators under political protection.”
If the Supreme Court orders a CBI investigation, it may also enable India to get these investment details from Panama through judicial process, which the country allows.
ENDS