Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan yesterday denied links with any of the offshore shipping companies in which he is supposed to be a director according to the leaked “Panama Papers”.
“I do not know any of the companies referred to by Indian Express - Sea Bulk Shipping Company Ltd, Lady Shipping Ltd, Treasure Shipping Ltd and Tramp Shipping Ltd,” the actor said in a statement.
“I have never been a director of any of the above stated companies,” he said. “It is possible that my name has been misused.”
Bachchan added: “I have paid all my taxes, including on monies spent by me overseas. Monies that I have remitted overseas have been in compliance with law, including remittances through LRS, after paying Indian taxes.
“In any event the news report in Indian Express does not even suggest any illegality on my part.”
Meanwhile the newspaper yesterday reported that a now-deceased underworld don, a politician, industrialists and an ex-cricketer are among those with alleged offshore links.
Amid these fresh reports, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan yesterday said not every offshore company opened by an Indian national need be illegitimate, and that this will be the primary task of the probe team in which the central bank has also been co-opted.
In a series of articles under “Panama Papers Part 2” - as part of the global expose on people with alleged offshore links - the Indian Express published its second list of Indian names, along with an article on how an aide to underworld don Dawood Ibrahim used a set of 17 entities to buy properties abroad.
Named in the second list, with some repeats, are: Politician Anurag Kejriwal, industrialists Gautam and Karan Thapar, businesspeople Ranjeev Dahuja and Kapil Sain Goel, jeweller Ashwini Kumar Mehra, former cricketer Ashok Malhotra, and pharmaceuticals maker Vinod Ramachandra Jadhav.
Also named in the list are IT consultant Gautam Seengal, agribusiness owner Vivek Jain, retired government employee Prabhash Sankhla, and garment exporters Satish Govind Samtani, Vishal Bahadur and Harish Mohnani.
The paper also gave glimpses of their alleged modus operandi.
On Monday, after the first list, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered a multi-agency probe team on the expose, conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) along with over 100 global media organisations, dubbed the “Panama Papers”.
RBI chief Rajan sought to clarify that the main tasks for the probe team will be to establish the legality of transactions. “We are in the investigation team on Panama Papers. We will have to see what’s legitimate and what’s not. That is a part of the investigation process,” he said.
“It’s important to remember that there are legitimate reasons, too, to have accounts overseas.”
On Monday, the newspaper ran several pages of the investigation reports alleging, among other people, Bachchan and his daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai were directors of companies in Panama. Others named in the report were real estate tycoons Sameer Gehlaut of Indiabulls and K P Singh of DLF.
Vinod Adani, the elder brother of industrialist Gautam Adani, politician Shishir Bajoria from West Bengal and Anurag Kejriwal of Loksatta Party were also alleged to have companies in tax havens. All of them have denied any wrongdoing.